The Last Scion
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Kurt is the Last Scion - the last of a magical bloodline destined to protect to world in an ultimate battle between good and evil. He must learn to hone his skills and strengthen his powers, and to do so, he must remain pure. It's a difficult when he's in love with his protector, Sebastian. Can Kurt keep love when he knows he he has to sacrifice everything he is to save the world?
1. The Last Scion - Prologue

**A/N:** _This actually starts out when Kurt and Sebastian are adults, but as you read on it starts back when they are teenagers in the temple. If Kurt seems different as an adult than he does when he's a teenager, that will all be explained in later one-shots. Also, this will all eventually be turned in to a book-length fic. Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)_

"Kuuurrrrtttt," Sebastian's voice sang up to Kurt from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen/dining room downstairs. "Oh, Kuuurrrrttt." Kurt smiled as he continued to fold towels in the master bedroom, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the man lurking in the house when he should be resting.

"Sebastian," Kurt called down without stopping his task. "I thought you were up here taking a nap. You were awake half the night preparing those potions."

"No, I couldn't sleep," Sebastian whined. "Come down here so we can make out."

Kurt rolled his eyes, but as always, he took Sebastian's teasing in his stride. Sebastian could be described as many things – loyal, kind, intelligent, a fierce protector – but he was also a constant and incurable flirt (at least where Kurt was involved), and he was getting worse and worse as time went on.

Or maybe it was just that he was comfortable with their current situation – finally on the road to owning their own house, better rested and more relaxed than they had been in ages, the days of always running from danger, of living from seedy motel room to seedy motel room, with one eye looking back over their shoulders, seemed to be behind them.

So flirting with his husband could be seen as a normal thing in most parts of the world – if the relationship Kurt and Sebastian had could be considered _normal_.

It was normal for them, and that's all that mattered.

Kurt and Sebastian had been raised together, side by side, by the same religious order, for a good portion of their formative years. They had been brought to the temple on the same day and immediately made a connection. It was because of Kurt that Sebastian made the decision to become a priest in the first place.

Sebastian pledged to do whatever it took to protect Kurt, even at the risk of his own life.

It was no secret that, for Sebastian, only a boy of eight when he first laid eyes on Kurt, meeting the Scion turned out to be love at first sight. And even if Kurt never admitted it, it was probably the same for him, too. They had been away from the temple, on a mission together, for over ten years – fugitives from pretty much everything in life they ever knew.

Sebastian never hid his regard for Kurt, how much he needed him, how much he loved him, and Kurt didn't shy away from admitting his own feelings, though in subtler, quieter ways. They shared a passion for each other, spent nights talking on end about fantasies they had of being together intimately, of making a real life with one another. But Kurt and Sebastian couldn't forget that Kurt was the Scion, the chosen, the defender of the world. That title hung over their heads like a dagger tied to a fraying thread, waiting to drop at any moment. Kurt's mission was one of sacrifice, and even though they wore rings proclaiming their devotion to one another, it was a vow that could not be consummated.

Not yet.

But that vow would last for as long as their love for one another lasted, and that would be an eternity.

Neither priest nor Scion knew what exactly Kurt was expected to do when the time came, or what would happen to him afterward. What they did know is he was the _last_ Scion. Humanity's final defense against evil.

If he failed, no one in the world would have a future.

No member of their order ever talked to Kurt about what would come, about what his life was going to be like when all was said and done. Kurt had suspected early on that whatever happened at the end of their mission, he wouldn't _have_ a future. Even if he won the battle against evil, he would probably not survive. It was a struggle as well as a journey, especially with the man he loved as his guardian. For his part, Kurt had to remain pure, untouched, for his mission to be successful. But that ban didn't extend to his mind; it didn't keep him from daydreaming about being wrapped naked in the arms of his priest, spending long, lazy days worshipping each other.

The order didn't hold priests to the same standard as the Scion. It was believed that in order for the priests to keep their minds focused on their tasks, they needed the temptation of unknown arousal and unexplored desire removed, so they were required one act of sexual intimacy. They held a big ceremony – a feast, music, ceremonial robes, the whole nine yards. Kurt didn't know too much about it. He didn't want any part in it. He thought it was a medieval concept, forcing the acolytes, only boys, to give up their virtue, leaving the priests no right to choose whether they wanted to participate or not.

Besides, the idea of watching Sebastian make love to someone else broke his heart too much for him to attend.

Whatever the actual purpose of the ceremony, whatever it was supposed to accomplish, it didn't seem to work on Sebastian. Sebastian loved Kurt. He wanted Kurt. Losing his virginity to a nobody didn't diminish that.

"Come on, Kurt," Sebastian persisted, his voice morphing into something different - melodic and smooth, with a hint of compulsion to it, "come down here and let me lick you. I promise I won't let you cum."

Kurt swallowed hard, dropping the towel he was holding on the bed. That didn't sound like his Sebastian. The voice was his, but he didn't speak like that – that crude, that crass, not out loud. Sebastian made no secret of his desire for Kurt and his disdain for their mission, but he'd never said anything overtly sexual like that before. He respected Kurt and the relationship they maintained.

And yet, those words lit a match inside Kurt's stomach, and the more he thought about it – being laid bare and vulnerable with Sebastian's mouth doing all sorts of ungodly things to him – he felt every inch of his insides burn, and the power within him, one that lit his skin and his body with a terrible blue flame, started to flicker.

"Sebastian", Kurt chided, his voice breaking, "that's not…that's not funny. You know I want to, but I can't. Don't make this harder for me than it already is."

"Kurt," Sebastian taunted in that rough, seductive voice Kurt had only dreamt about but never heard before, "come down here and let me take care of you. I'll hold you in my arms, undress you slowly…"

An image of Sebastian undressing him, kissing down Kurt's body as he stripped him of his clothes, filled Kurt's mind, and even if there was nothing he could do about it, it lured him out. His body needed it. His power wanted it. Kurt walked away from the bed and out on to the second floor landing to hear Sebastian's voice better.

"You know you want me," Sebastian continued. "You want my lips on you. You want my hands on your skin. You want me to spread you open and have my way with you…"

Kurt harkened to that voice, step by step, hands gripping the railing until his arms shook and his knuckles turned white. Sebastian's voice had a strange, undeniable edge to it. It called to Kurt, pulled him; he felt helpless against it. He reached the stairs, preparing to put a foot down on the first one, when arms grabbed him – one hand clamping over his mouth and another around his waist, dragging him backward into one of the darkened bedrooms. Kurt heard the door lock and turned on his attacker, shocked and confused to be staring into the familiar green eyes of his priest.

"Seb—"

"Shh," Sebastian hushed the Scion, putting him on high alert. "I felt it when it materialized. It's downstairs in the kitchen. I don't know what kind of demon it is, but it's powerful, I'll tell you that."

"Then…then how come _I_ didn't feel him?" Kurt asked with alarm.

"I'm not sure," Sebastian said, looking confused about that, too. "Maybe he's found a way to block you, a way around your defenses, but it seems he might have underestimated me a little."

"Well, if he could get into the house, why didn't he just come upstairs then?" Kurt asked, backing away from the bedroom door.

"I don't know," Sebastian admitted. "Maybe with the layers of prayers and protection spells, he can't make it up this far."

_Creak._

Both men turned at the sound of footsteps climbing up the stairs.

"Well, fuck," Sebastian sighed, grabbing at a handful of his hair in frustration. He grabbed a bottle of holy water from the bedside table and doused the floor right in front of the door. As an extra measure, he poured mounds of white salt in a line at the doorway, a trick the priests learned from the white witches.

"Get up on the bed," Sebastian commanded. He chanted a spell to lock the door, and Kurt complied, though climbing up on to the bed with a half-dressed Sebastian wasn't helping the state of his lingering arousal.

_Creak._

…

_Creak._

"Kurt," the fake Sebastian's voice called out, and now that Kurt could hear it closer, more clearly, he sensed the veiled edge to it – a dark, demonic glamour used to mask its true source. Kurt felt the power within him rise to the surface, looking for a fight, but Sebastian patted his arm in a warning.

"No," Sebastian said. "You can't. If you do, you might end up summoning a whole horde. Let me handle this."

Kurt bit his lip and extinguished the blue flame creeping up his body, the power raging inside him displeased at being shut away. Kurt wrapped his arms around his chest tightly, and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body, ready to do anything to protect him.

The footsteps stopped in front of the door.

"Kuuuurrrtttt…come out and pla-ay…"

A second of silence – tense, foreboding - fills the room, lowering the temperature of the air around them, chilling its occupants to the bone. They continue to wait, preparing for a fight, but nothing happens – no noise, no footsteps, no voice. Kurt held his breath, hoping that the demon gave up and went away, though he'd never heard of a demon who could be stopped by some salt, some water, and a wooden door. Suddenly, a foul stench filled the air, making Kurt's mouth water, as a black fog seeped in beneath the locked door. From between the wood slats of the hardwood floor, decomposers rose up from the earth: centipedes, millipedes, roaches, and darkling beetles, clicking their glossy exoskeletons, scuttling toward the bed. Kurt shivered, curling in on himself. Sebastian's eyes burned with the same blue flame as Kurt's, called forth from Kurt's body, fighting to be let free, and he struggled to keep it at bay. Exposing the blue fire was what the demon wanted. A lick of it would summon every dark creature from every dimension possible. The fog reached the line of salt and holy water, and an audible 'hisssss' split the air, along with a surprising groan of pain.

"Scion…" The voice transformed into an essence, vile and cruel, laced with a venom Kurt could feel prickling his skin, "your beloved priest won't be around to protect you forever. I will catch him when he least expects it and skin him alive. Then I _will_ have you. Sooner or later, you will be mine."

The black fog seeped out beneath the door, filtering away, the numerous insects retreating back beneath the boards and disappearing into the dark.

Sebastian felt the demon leave, felt it disapparate into thin air, but he still held tight to Kurt's trembling body.

"We'll have to leave now," Kurt muttered sadly. Sebastian bit his tongue hard. He wanted to yell and curse. He wanted to lash out at something and punch it hard. They'd managed to stay in one place for almost a year this time, and Kurt loved this little house. It reminded him of the place he had lived with his father before he died, before the forces of evil found them and killed him in their quest to capture Kurt. For the first time in years, Kurt had allowed himself to feel settled, to feel safe. They were beginning to believe that if they stayed quiet, if Kurt didn't use his power, then the things and people searching for him might forget about him.

The battle between good and evil that Kurt was born to fight might never happen if he simply disappeared.

Sebastian hated having the rug pulled out from under him.

"Yes," Sebastian said, trying to stay strong. "But don't worry. We'll find another house just like this one. Or better. I promise."

Kurt nodded and fell painfully silent.

"Don't listen to him, Kurt," Sebastian whispered. "He can't get to you as long as I'm here. As long as I'm alive. I promised you once that I'd make a future for you. I'll find a way."

Sebastian placed a kiss in Kurt's hair. He thought of the things the demon had said. The voice wasn't his, but the words definitely were. Wanting to be that way with Kurt, wanting to undress him, to touch him, to lick him mercilessly until he screamed Sebastian's name – all of those things came straight from the dream Sebastian was having when the demon appeared. But he didn't want just that. Sebastian wanted a happily ever after for Kurt. He was determined to find it, one way or another.

"I won't let him hurt you," Kurt said, his voice shaking. "I don't care who comes for me. I won't let him touch you."

"Of course, you won't," Sebastian said, nuzzling his nose in the soft skin at the base of Kurt's neck. "You'll protect me, and I'll protect you. We'll protect each other."

"For as long as we both live?" Kurt whispered, trying for a smile.

"I'm yours, Scion," Sebastian whispered with another kiss. "My life, my body, my heart, my soul, have always been yours, and they will always be yours."

Kurt sniffled, closing his arms tighter around Sebastian's, and Sebastian's heart fell.

They laid together in the dark, letting time drip by while Sebastian made plans to uproot their lives once again and find a place where he could keep Kurt safe.


	2. Sebastian and The Last Scion

**A/N:** _This chapter details 'the ceremony' and how Sebastian was chosen to be Kurt's protector. Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)_

Kurt fidgeted, watching through narrow eyelids as Sebastian adjusted the collar of his ceremonial robe.

"If you're going to be naked anyway, why do they make you dress up?" Kurt groused. Sebastian turned to peek over his shoulder at Kurt with a smirk on his lips, more sheepish than condescending.

"Actually, I'm not wearing anything beneath the robe," Sebastian commented.

_'Oh,'_ Kurt mouthed, turning his back on his friend.

Sebastian watched Kurt's body as he turned – his shoulders slumping, his head bowing, eyes that Sebastian couldn't see trained down to the floor.

"Look…" Sebastian came up behind Kurt and wrapped secure arms around his chest, trying hard not to press his body against Kurt's and make him any more uncomfortable. "This is just a technicality. It doesn't mean anything. It will be over and done with, and then I'll come back here and we can watch a movie or something."

"Can we watch _Moulin Rouge_?" Kurt asked quietly. Sebastian smiled.

"Whatever you want, Scion."

Kurt's head popped up.

"Why do you call me that now?" Kurt asked. He had noticed more and more that his friend referred to him more by his title than by his name.

"The priests want us to," Sebastian said, hooking his chin over Kurt's shoulder.

"Well, _I_ don't want you to." Kurt turned in Sebastian's arms and looked deep into his emerald green eyes. "We're here alone. I'm not Scion here. I'm just Kurt. So call me Kurt. Okay?"

Sebastian pecked a kiss to Kurt's forehead.

"Whatever you want, Kurt," Sebastian said. "Of course, I could just call you gorgeous. I think it suits you better."

Kurt smiled weakly, but he looked down the length of Sebastian's gaudy ceremonial robe and the smile fell.

"Don't," Kurt said. "Don't…just…call me Kurt."

Sebastian nodded. No reason to break Kurt's heart more than it already was.

Three quick knocks on Sebastian's cell door interrupted their private moment.

"Come in," Sebastian sighed, turning to greet the man who would usher him away from Kurt and the one moment they would never get the chance to share.

"It's time, Sebastian," the elderly man said, his voice clipped and curt, thick with his obvious disdain and disrespect. It wasn't really a mystery that Sebastian wasn't necessarily a favorite among the other priests, and it amused Sebastian to no end to use that to his advantage. "Have you properly prepared yourself?"

"Do you mean am I ready to go fuck some guy I don't know and will never see again?" Sebastian asked, not even trying to hide his bitterness. "Then the answer to that is yes, sir."

Shielded behind Sebastian's body, hidden from view, Kurt flinched.

"You know, I don't even see why they bother," the man sneered. "You are never going to become protector for…"

Kurt stepped to the side, revealing his presence, seething at the surly man who had insulted his friend. Kurt might be thin in stature, he might be quiet in nature, and he might seem small, but angry Kurt – Last Scion Kurt – could be downright intimidating. In the dark confines of the small cell, the man standing in the doorway could swear he saw Kurt's blue eyes glow.

The priest's mouth dropped, his face going so pale it turned an ashen grey.

"Sc-scion," he stuttered, bowing low in front of Kurt. Kurt looked at Sebastian's amused face and rolled his eyes.

"Grumbald." Kurt acknowledged the man with a stunted nod. "You may leave us. I will be walking my friend to the temple."

Sebastian's face went pale as well and he swallowed hard. They had discussed this. Kurt wanted nothing to do with the ceremony, wanted nothing to do with watching his best friend make love to someone else, especially with the unspoken feelings that seemed to swirl around them whenever they were together. In his heart, Sebastian knew Kurt loved him. Kurt never had any reason to doubt Sebastian's feelings. Sebastian told him every single day.

"But nothing," Kurt growled with a stomp of his foot and a hint of restrained tears in his voice. "Be gone or I'll fuck him myself."

Sebastian chuckled once nervously, but Kurt might as well have threatened to kill the elderly priest, who looked close to vomiting at the thought of the Chosen One, the Last Scion, sullying himself with a common priest and destroying a mission that the order had been preparing millenia for.

"As you wish, Scion," the man replied, tripping over himself to back out of the cramped quarters, keeping his head bowed while simultaneously scowling at Sebastian. Sebastian plastered a bright, patronizing smile on his face, raised a hand, and waved.

"Bye-bye," Sebastian sang out as the door slammed shut.

Kurt sighed, falling back into his friend's arms when they were finally alone.

"You better watch that mouth, Sci…Kurt," Sebastian said, placing a secret kiss in Kurt's hair. "They're going to wash it out."

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see them try," Kurt said, his voice muffled by the multitude of material draped over Sebastian's body that Kurt hid his face in.

Sebastian wanted nothing more than to stay with Kurt forever, but he had responsibilities – they both did - and as ridiculous as this ceremony was, the faster he got it over with, the faster he would return to Kurt.

"Come on," Sebastian said, looping his arm through Kurt's, "walk with me."

Kurt nodded, brushing away a tear from the corner of his eye with his fingertips. Another tear broke free to take its place and Sebastian caught that one, bringing the drop to his lips and kissing it away. Sebastian's eyes looked a bit longer at Kurt's somber face, wishing he could kiss Kurt's lips instead.

They walked in silence across the courtyard, arm in arm, to the temple lit with torches along the outside and a single line of priests awaiting Sebastian's arrival. Most of the priests eyed the two of them suspiciously. Kurt and Sebastian had been raised together - they had been discovered at roughly the same time - but they seemed to have no other friends among anyone else in the order save for Sebastian's mentor, Tellemband, who hated every day the vows and duties that would forever keep these young men apart. It was unavoidable. Kurt had a job to do, an important one, and if Tellemband had any say in the matter, Sebastian would be right by his side.

It was simply a matter of convincing everyone else.

Tellemband stepped forward, knowing Sebastian had no real supporters in the group gathered, and smiled as genuine a smile as he could muster.

"Are you ready, my son?" he asked Sebastian gently.

Sebastian took one last glance at Kurt and tried to look supportive, but the edges of his mouth quivered beyond his control.

"Yes, sir," Sebastian said, and from what he could see, something in the depths of Kurt's blue eyes shattered.

Tellemband turned to Kurt with the same genuine smile.

"Scion," he said, greeting Kurt formally with a slight bow, "will you be…"

"No, I will not," Kurt snapped. He tried to pull his arm out of Sebastian's grasp but Sebastian held him, circling his arms around him and holding him tight. The other priests gasped that Sebastian would have the gall to manhandle the Scion so familiarly, but Tellemband simply shook his head.

Sebastian knew he shouldn't. He knew in many ways it was too, too cruel, but he couldn't leave Kurt with any doubts.

"It'll be you, Kurt," Sebastian whispered. "It doesn't matter who I'm with, it will always be you."

Kurt crumbled in Sebastian's arms, sobbing like a wounded animal. He wrenched free of Sebastian's embrace and, with a tormented cry escaping his throat, ran off into the darkness. Sebastian hung his head. He felt that cry rip through his entire body. Full of Kurt's boundless despair, it echoed off the walls of the other temples around. Sebastian's mind followed it, trying to stay connected to Kurt for as long as possible. When it faded, he heard the other priests murmuring their disapproval.

"Too selfish…"

"Too connected…"

"…never be a protector…"

Tellemband put his hands on Sebastian's shoulders and led him past the glowers and glares of the other priests and into the temple.

"Don't you dare listen to them," he whispered into his young charge's ear. "There's more written into this prophecy then they'll ever understand because it is meant to be read with the heart, not the head, and I don't think they have any."

Tellemband led Sebastian down a long, dimly lit hall that opened up into a large theater, much like a coliseum, where other priests and acolytes of the order had gathered to bear witness to the ceremony. In the center of the theater, seated on an intricately woven rug, was a man, older than Sebastian by only a few years, already naked, beautiful if Sebastian was willing to admit it. But when he looked at the man with the come hither hazel eyes and the tanned skin, all Sebastian let himself see was Kurt – _his_ Kurt, sitting on a picnic blanket in the sun out in the courtyard, smiling up at him, blue eyes sparkling as they caught the light. This was the fantasy Sebastian had created to get through this – a fantasy of Kurt and their first time together, a first time that would never be real. In Sebastian's dreams, there was no divide, no duty, no responsibilities. Kurt wasn't the Scion and Sebastian wasn't a priest. They were just men, together, in love, sharing a private moment, enjoying each other.

Sebastian let himself get lost to this fantasy, let himself believe that the arms reaching out to him were Kurt's. He dropped his robe and the man on the rug gasped at his first sight of Sebastian's body. Sebastian wasn't like many of the other priests who didn't value physical exercise over mental fitness. Sebastian wasn't soft; he wasn't spindly or weak. He was strong, muscular, every inch an athletic man in his prime. Sebastian, his mind filled with images of Kurt, approached the man on the rug eagerly, and the man grinned like the cat that had found the hidden bucket of cream. The man rolled onto his stomach, his body already prepared for Sebastian's use. The priests and their consorts had been told there would be no eye contact, no kissing. This was about sex, not intimacy. Sebastian settled down between the man's spread legs and with trembling hands guided his hard cock into the man's body.

"Kurt," Sebastian sighed, needing to say his name to keep the dream from disappearing. The man's incredulous face snapped around to meet Sebastian's closed eyes.

"My name's not…"

Sebastian put a hand on the man's back between his shoulder blades and shoved his face firmly into the rug. He didn't need that foreign voice destroying his carefully constructed fantasy.

"Kurt," Sebastian murmured, moving slowly in and out of the nameless man's body, and at that point the man beneath him could care less what Sebastian called him. "My Kurt…"

Tellemband smiled at the sour men beside him.

"I told you," he said, beaming at the young man who continued to moan Kurt's name. "It has to be him."

"He's in love with the Scion?" a faceless voice asked in disgust.

"He'll jeopardize the mission," another grumbled. "He'll put his own needs ahead of everything else."

"Never," Tellemband said, turning to the row of men. "He'll protect the Scion with his life, I'm sure of it."

Grumbald, sitting amid the row of priests, his expression a twisted, calculating grimace, huffed loudly.

"We'll see," he said, turning away from the scene before him and heading out of the temple.

* * *

Sebastian did up the buttons to his robe, not even sparing a glance for the sated man with the goofy smile reclining back on the soiled rug.

"You know, they say the priests and their courtesans can hang around and get to know each other a little better," the man mentioned. "Did you want to…"

"I have somewhere I need to be," Sebastian said quickly, finishing the last of his buttons and turning around, walking headlong right into another priest.

"Are you going to see the Scion?" the man asked with a sneer and a raised eyebrow.

"What does it matter to you?" Sebastian bit out angrily.

The man glared at Sebastian, but then his lips curled into a vicious grin.

"Well, I guess it's best that you spend as much time with him as you can," the priest said with a touch of grim humor. "He has a mission to begin, so he probably won't be around much longer."

Sebastian's whole body went cold.

_Kurt_ wouldn't be around much longer.

Implying that Kurt was leaving and Sebastian would be staying behind.

Sebastian brushed roughly past the priest and ran from the temple. He had intended on stopping by his own cell and showering first to get every last trace of that whore off his skin, but he didn't have time. That priest knew something…something Kurt must already know by now. Sebastian had to find out for himself.

Sebastian raced through the courtyard and past the dormitories, into the rectory where Kurt was kept.

Sebastian heard Kurt's muffled crying before he even approached the door. Sebastian knocked and the crying quieted into choked sobs.

"Kurt," Sebastian called softly. "Kurt, can I come in?"

After long moments of silence, Sebastian thought that Kurt might not open the door, but then it creaked open slowly. Kurt took one look at Sebastian and threw himself into the young priest's arms. Sebastian wanted to push Kurt away. He felt dirty and ashamed. He had convinced himself that he had made love to Kurt in order to survive that ceremony with his sanity intact, but the truth was he hadn't. He had lain with a whore - a common whore. But Kurt's arms were insistent, pulling Sebastian into the room and sitting him onto the hard bed. Sebastian couldn't refuse him.

"I'm so sorry," Sebastian groaned into Kurt's hair. "I'm so, so sorry." He felt tears roll down his cheeks but Kurt shook his head.

"It's not that," Kurt murmured, though Sebastian could tell by the tone in his voice it might have still been _that_, if only just a little. "Grumbald came back after you left. H-he said that I'm starting my mission t-tomorrow." Kurt looked up at Sebastian, his cheeks red, his eyes watery. "I'm leaving, Bas. I'm leaving…with Alistair."

Sebastian's whole body went rigid, his teeth clenched, his head filling with vile, hateful thoughts. _Alistair_ \- that whimpering, weak suck-up chosen to protect _his_ beautiful Kurt. Sebastian couldn't ignore the fact that Alistair also happened to be Grumbald's pupil. That no-good excuse for a priest. He had this planned out. He did this to them. He had intended on finding a way to keep them apart all along.

Sebastian refused to believe that this was happening. He had always imagined that he and Kurt would end up together. He was so sure of it, that even now he couldn't convince himself that things would turn out any different.

Kurt's body trembled and Sebastian realized that he had spent far too much time lingering in his loathing.

"Don't worry, Kurt," Sebastian managed in a voice that sounded weak even to himself. "I won't let them split us up."

"B-but…" Kurt whimpered.

"But nothing," Sebastian said firmly. "I don't care what they say. They can't take you away from me."

Sebastian held Kurt's limp body at arm's distance, noticing how much Kurt had already given up. There had to be something else. Grumbald must have said something else. He had never seen Kurt like this before, but he decided now wasn't the time to ask.

"Let me go shower and change," Sebastian suggested quietly, "and then we'll climb into bed and think of a solution."

Sebastian wanted to sound confident, but other than running away he couldn't really imagine anything they could do.

But if running away was their only option, Sebastian would take it.

"Can I come with you?" Kurt asked. "And just sit on the floor and wait?"

Sebastian sighed. His original plan had been to turn the shower water up to scalding and scream out his frustration, to cry until he had no tears left, to mourn something that never had a hope of being, but he couldn't say no to Kurt. He would never deny him anything.

"Sure," Sebastian said, offering Kurt his hand and pulling him to his feet. "Whatever you want."

* * *

A sharp white light broke through Sebastian's dreamless sleep, and he curled over Kurt's body protectively, preparing for a fight. He had made a decision; he was determined that there was no way anyone was taking Kurt from him, Scion or no. He would follow Kurt to the ends of the Earth, he would give up his place in the order, even if it meant discommunication…even if it meant death.

"Sebastian? Kurt?" a soft voice muttered, rousing them further awake. "You have to get up. You have to go _now_."

Sebastian blinked his eyes open and saw Tellemband, backlit by the bright light, a duffel bag open in his hands as he shoved clothes from the dresser into it along with other odds and ends.

Sebastian shook Kurt, but Kurt whined, not wanting to leave the peace of his dreams to face the reality of a life without Sebastian.

"No, Bas," he murmured.

"Kurt…babe…it's Tellemband. He says we have to leave."

That only vaguely caught Kurt's attention. He opened one eye, watching Sebastian's mentor shove a few more things into the nearly ancient, olive drab military duffel and zip it shut. He turned back onto his side, hiding his head beneath his pillow.

Tellemband grabbed Sebastian's arm, pulling him upright from the bed and away from Kurt to get his attention.

"Don't go back to the dorms," he said severely. "I got all your things. Everything is packed in the pick-up outside."

Sebastian shook his head as he tried to understand.

"Take the north road out," Tellemband continued, shoving a hard plastic card into Sebastian's hand. "This is for the bank account that the order set up for the protector of the Scion, but the minute they know he's gone they're going to close it, so find the first ATM you can and empty it. Every cent. Do you understand?" Sebastian looked down at the card and saw a Post-It wrapped around it with four digits written in clear block script.

"I think so," Sebastian said around a yawn. Tellemband looked at the tired young priest, reared back, and slapped him hard across the face.

"What the fuck?" Sebastian groaned, putting a hand to his wounded cheek, his eyes opened wide.

Tellemband drew his face close to Sebastian's and spoke slowly, significantly.

"Listen to me," Tellemband said. "There will be dire consequences in the morning when the others discover the two of you gone. You need to leave now, go as far as you can away from here…and don't look back."

Sebastian nodded, his green eyes shining with renewed understanding.

"Continue the mission," Tellemband advised. "Keep him safe. Trust no one. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Sebastian said, finally awake with the gravity of the situation. "I understand."

Sebastian shouldered the bag and lifted a sleeping Kurt into his arms, then followed Tellemband quietly out to the courtyard. He didn't ask any questions, didn't wonder out loud why there were no other priests roaming the rectory halls even though there was always one or two about at this hour. He figured Tellemband had done something but felt it better not to know exactly what. They padded out to the cobblestone yard and made a break for the waiting truck. Sebastian slid Kurt into the cold passenger seat and he started to whimper.

"No," Kurt groaned, kicking out his feet but still mostly asleep. "No, I don't want to go. Not with Alistair. Not without Bas."

"Kurt, baby," Sebastian hushed, running a soothing thumb over Kurt's right cheekbone, "it's alright. Go back to sleep. It'll all be okay."

Tellemband watched with a sad, fond smile as Sebastian parted Kurt's bangs and kissed his forehead. Kurt settled back to sleep and Sebastian buckled him in, closing the truck door quietly so as not to wake him again. Sebastian quickly rounded the front of the truck to the driver's side. Tellemband met him there and hugged him, patting him on the back and squeezing him tight. Tellemband released the boy too soon, but he knew if they didn't go, they'd never make it off the compound before the priests on first watch regained consciousness.

He opened the truck door and Sebastian slid into the driver's seat.

Sebastian rolled down the window and looked into the face of the man who raised him, who taught him everything he knew, who defended him and kept him safe…a man whom he would most likely never see again.

"Sebastian," Tellemband said, his voice shaking with emotion, "don't come back."

Sebastian nodded. He understood why. He fired the ignition, shifted the truck into drive, and took off down the road with Kurt by his side, away from temples and ceremonies and disappointed eyes…and the only life he had ever known.


	3. Sebastian the Protector

**A/N:** _Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)_

A highway no-tell motel.

That definitely wasn't a place for the lauded Last Scion, but Kurt (plain, regular, beautiful Kurt) had no business being there either. If things were different and Sebastian had his way, Kurt would be settled in the lap of luxury with nothing but the best of everything…the kinds of things Sebastian's past life and his estranged father could definitely help Sebastian give to him. But Sebastian figured this run down little shack - barely four walls, a ceiling, and thankfully indoor plumbing – was the perfect place to hide out for the night. With all the money they had at their disposal and the way the less forgiving priests had never stopped seeing Sebastian as materialistic and self-serving, The Stardust 79 was definitely the last place anyone would think to look for them.

Sebastian paid for the room in cash. The doped out guy behind the desk barely acknowledged his existence, didn't know that he was sharing his room with another person, and Sebastian was grateful for those small favors.

When they left the compound with its towering temples behind, Sebastian obediently drove the north road, hitting every gas station he could, withdrawing money and leaving a paper trail. The account was linked to a trust, which meant no daily limit as long as he withdrew only $800 from each ATM. But doing it this way would make them too obvious. Sebastian needed them to be only obvious enough. Along the way he bought a disposable cell phone at a 7-11 and through a few admittedly shady deals, he made the remainder of the money 'disappear' to a place where he would be able to conveniently locate it five days later. He wasn't too concerned about any of these people turning him in. The last time Sebastian saw any of these thugs was before his father ditched him. He was eight years old, with a crew cut and a broken nose courtesy of dear old dad. It took some tracking down, but he tied up every loose end, and for all intents and purposes, Kurt and Sebastian disappeared somewhere around the Tackaloosa Truck Stop.

Then, because he had taken every word Tellemband said to heart, he trusted no one, and turned their truck due east, driving down a few streets before making a round-about to insure that anyone who had physical contact with them didn't see anything that might be considered suspicious.

If Sebastian allowed himself to dwell more on human sins, he might actually be impressed with his own criminal prowess, but it paled in comparison to Tellemband's ability to pick a lock or crack a safe, so Sebastian stuffed those feelings deep down and concentrated on the task at hand.

Hours after leaving the place they once called home, what they once considered a sanctuary, Kurt awoke, and even though his eyes hadn't completely cleared from his hours of sleep and crying, he commanded Sebastian to tell him everything.

Sebastian still bowed to the Scion. It was a sin to lie to him, even if just to spare his feelings.

Sebastian took a deep breath and explained Tellemband's late night visit, his command to get Kurt as far away from the temple as possible, to continue the mission…to never come back.

Kurt tried to stay stoic, but it was that last part, the last thing Tellemband said to Sebastian that made the tears fall anew.

Kurt and Sebastian were schooled in very different aspects of the order, but one thing was crystal clear for both of them – there were extreme consequences for defying the order's wishes, consequences that Tellemand would suffer come morning.

Consequences that Sebastian would more than suffer if the priests ever found them.

These warnings were embedded in Kurt and Sebastian specifically from a young age, when it was obvious that their affection for each other exceeded the boundaries of mere friendship. Kurt believed it was done on purpose so that he would not fall in love with Sebastian and so Sebastian would not try and kidnap him away…the way he was doing now.

Kurt cried and cried for hours, and Sebastian let him, holding his hand across the bench seat and simply being there for him. He wouldn't tell Kurt not to cry, or that everything would be alright. Sebastian wanted to believe it, but he couldn't make any promises, and Kurt deserved to cry.

He deserved to cry for a lot of things.

So did Sebastian.

Sebastian drove and drove, through the night and into the day, back into night again, until the lines in the road crossed in front of his vision, and he got tired searching out every side road gas station to fill up their tank.

Kurt didn't speak when Sebastian walked him into their detestable room. Sebastian shook out the bed sheets and inspected everything carefully for bedbugs. When Sebastian felt comfortable that the room sucked but was not infested, he lay Kurt down carefully, and then started the task of performing spells of protection, spells of confusion, prayers of cloaking, everything he could think of that would keep search parties – human and demonic – off their trail.

When he was done, he climbed up on the bed behind Kurt, but when Kurt's body stiffened, Sebastian pulled back a little.

"Is this okay?" Sebastian asked. The question sounded awkward since he'd never had to ask it before.

Kurt nodded, and Sebastian pulled in close, the salve of Kurt's body against his immediately setting everything right.

"Would you…could you…"

Sebastian looked down at Kurt's face in the dark, trying to make out the expression on his face.

"Yes, Kurt?"

"Could you tell me what it was like?" Kurt asked, his voice dipping down into a register Sebastian almost didn't hear.

Sebastian was going to ask "What was _what _like?" to stall for time, but he wasn't about to insult the Scion's intelligence.

"I'll tell you," Sebastian said, "but does it have to be right now?"

Kurt sniffled. Sebastian felt a tear drip from Kurt's cheek and fall onto his skin, and Sebastian knew, yes, it had to be right now.

"What do you want to know?" Sebastian asked, praying that if anyone in the heavens above still had any affection for him, even after kidnapping Kurt, that this conversation would be quick and painless.

"What was his name?" Kurt asked.

Sebastian's own body went rigid now. He didn't mean it to, but it was just a reaction to the thought that Kurt might think he cared so much about some random that he would hold onto something as personal as the man's name.

"I don't know," Sebastian groaned.

"Did he tell it to you?"

"Maybe he did, I don't know," Sebastian said, trying to cool his temper. "It's not important."

"It _is_ important," Kurt retorted, sounding strangely defensive.

"No, Kurt," Sebastian said, his voice tight and strained. "It's _not _important."

"He's a person, Sebastian," Kurt argued. "He gave you something of himself…"

"No, Kurt!" Sebastian cried, almost shoving away from the other boy. "No, Kurt, he didn't! He wasn't a virgin. He wasn't in love with me. He was a whore, Kurt. _I_ gave him something. _I_ gave him something I wanted to give to you, and they paid him to take it away from me. So, no Kurt. He wasn't a person. Not to me. He was just a means to an end."

Kurt gasped and the indignantion in that small sound filled Sebastian with hurt and rage.

"You don't think that maybe this was difficult for me, too?" Sebastian stumbled over words that fought one another to be heard. "I always thought they would see us together all these years, see how much I was in love with you, and…"

"Let you sleep with me?" Kurt scoffed.

"Let me pass this by," Sebastian whimpered, trying to keep his voice steady and strong, "and when they didn't, Kurt, it almost broke me." Sebastian sniffled, swallowing back all the fury welling up in his throat, not wanting to lash out at the one person who deserved his anger less than anyone. "The only reason I didn't fight was because I thought, I truly believed, they were making me go through with it _because_ of my love for you, that for certain they would make me your protector. And now to find out that wasn't the case…"

Sebastian shook his head, shaking away dark thoughts; trying to shake away tears, too.

"It wasn't him, Kurt," Sebastian whispered, wrapping his arms around Kurt's body and trying to pull him close, whining low in the back of his throat when Kurt resisted. "It was you. _Your_ hair, _your_ eyes, _your _smile, _your_ body…it was all you, and for now, at least, if I can't keep believing that, then I'm going to fall apart."

Kurt felt Sebastian shiver and melted back against him, cursing himself, cursing his immaturity, after everything Sebastian had been through in the last hours just to protect him. He hated himself for his behavior.

What a Scion he was turning out to be.

All those lessons, all those ceremonies, all this pomp and circumstance, and he was really nothing more than a jealous teenager. Kurt wanted to turn in Sebastian's arms and hold him, but he suddenly had an idea, admittedly sort of a stupid idea that might just make things monumentally worse, but he was going to be all the things Sebastian was too disciplined to be. He was going to be greedy and selfish…and human.

"Can you tell me the daydream?" Kurt asked innocently, pulling completely out of Sebastian's arms. "This way I can pretend I was there with you?"

Sebastian swallowed. He knew what Kurt was doing.

Kurt was the Last Scion, in many ways touted as a perfect being, without earthly concerns and cares, but he was also a human teenager with normal hormonal responses.

"Kurt…" Sebastian warned, moving as far to the other end of the bed as the single mattress would allow.

"Just…don't touch me," Kurt said kindly, "and talk to me."

Kurt waited in the dark, holding fast to the edge of the mattress, hoping that Sebastian would indulge him.

"Alright," Sebastian relented, letting his eyes drift closed, trying to recapture the memory.

"You were waiting for me…on a picnic blanket beneath the willows in the courtyard where we have lunch on the warm days in the spring…"

"Mmhmm," Kurt nodded keeping completely still.

"And we weren't dressed in robes, or some stupid ceremonial garb, just jeans and t-shirts. We were just people…"

Of all the details in his daydream, their laid-back clothing was the part he loved the most. He knew that the world outside their gates didn't always smile too brightly on homosexual couples, but so many days he'd rather face _that_ narrow-minded persecution than the idea that some huge, universal battle between good and evil would tear him and Kurt apart.

"And I sat beside you," Sebastian continued, his voice hoarse and thick, "and you kissed me…"

Sebastian breathed heavily, a grin spreading on his lips. Kurt looked back over his shoulder.

"Did you kiss him?" Kurt murmured, trying not to sound accusatory.

"No," Sebastian answered quickly, opening his eyes so Kurt could see Sebastian's sincerity in their depths. "No…even if they let us, I wouldn't have. _That_ I get to keep."

Kurt smiled to himself in the dark, but Sebastian caught just a hint of the glimmer in his eyes before he looked away.

"I held your face in my hands," Sebastian continued softly, unintentionally seducing Kurt with the smooth slide of his voice. "Tracing your cheekbones with my thumbs, staring deep into your eyes between each kiss, letting my tongue play over the seam of your mouth until you let me in…"

"Aha," Kurt sighed, but the sound carefully camouflaged a moan, and Sebastian heard alarm bells fire off in his head. His own erection returned, that hidden moan bringing it to life. Sebastian locked his hands together behind his back in an effort not to let them wander.

"I stripped you of your clothing, one piece at a time…"

Sebastian waited, letting the image of him helping Kurt out of his clothes sink in. Sebastian saw Kurt's fists tighten in the sheets. He wanted to shut his eyes again, but he couldn't. He'd never seen Kurt aroused before. Sure, they'd shared a bed tons of times, and went their own separate ways silently when the need arose, but he never witnessed Kurt's world unwind, and this, just from the sound of Sebastian's voice.

"A-and I rolled you over on your stomach," Sebastian panted, his entire body trembling with the strain, "and kissed you over your shoulders, over your neck, down your back, licking down your spine…"

Sebastian heard Kurt gasp, his hand breaking away from the sheets to claw lightly over his own skin, trying to follow the trail Sebastian's tongue would have taken, switching to his sternum when his spine was too difficult to reach.

Sebastian's breath shuddered when he thought about the next place he dreamed his mouth had kissed.

"A-and then, Kurt," Sebastian faltered, his eyes falling closed again before the image of Kurt did him in, "a-and then I held you open and gently, very gently, I kissed…"

Sebastian felt shivering fingers press against his lips, and without a thought he pecked a kiss on them quickly.

"N-no more," Kurt commanded. Sebastian opened his eyes, afraid he had offended Kurt, afraid that he had made Kurt feel dirty, but the smile that met him erased all his concerns. Kurt bit his lip, and in the fading candlelight Sebastian saw a tinge of pink on the apples of his high cheekbones, and a slight sheen of perspiration covering his brow. "That's…that was…" Kurt's eyes darted away, unable to stare too long into Sebastian's, which looked at him in a way Kurt had never seen before. "Enough for now. That was enough for now."

Sebastian couldn't find any bit of his voice to answer so he nodded.

Kurt giggled at Sebastian's silence.

"Uh…do…do you think you can hold me?" he asked sheepishly.

Sebastian took a few deep, exaggerated breaths, smirking when Kurt threw his head back and laughed.

"I think I can manage," Sebastian assured him, dragging Kurt close into the circle of his arms, leaving him enough space between them to settle down.

"Thank you," Kurt murmured against Sebastian's skin. "Thank you for humoring me."

Sebastian buried his nose in Kurt's hair and breathed in, trying to banish all thoughts of priests and ceremonies with the scent of Kurt's shampoo that always reminded him of warm spring breezes and that sacred weeping willow tree.


	4. Vows and Silence

The sound of rushing water broke through the dark oblivion that passed for sleep, and Sebastian did everything he could to try and push it away so he could return to that black abyss where nothing evil existed, nothing hunted them, nothing kept them apart. Sebastian reached out to draw Kurt tighter into the circle of his embrace, but once he realized he was lying in the small bed alone, he sat bolt upright; frantic, panic stricken eyes searching the darkness for Kurt.

He tried to wake up and recover his ability for rational thinking, trying to make sense of what was going on around him. He was struck again by the rushing water. The only place he was going to find rushing water in a motel room was the bathroom.

Sebastian breathed a huge sigh of relief. Kurt must be taking a shower. After all the stress and strain of the past day and a half, he most likely woke up to a nightmare and needed to relax. Sebastian listened to the sound of the water beating down on the shower walls and also Kurt's naked body, and for the first time he noticed Kurt whimpering. Sebastian's heart sank, thinking of Kurt – his poor, beautiful Kurt – crying beneath the hot water, probably using the spray to mask his tears. Sebastian swung his legs over the side of the bed and headed to the bathroom door, his hand poised to knock when a sudden, unexpected keen caught his attention. Sebastian held his breath and listened harder, trying to hone in on that sound if it came around again, and when it finally did, Sebastian was sure. His jaw dropped as he backed away from the door. The backs of his knees hit the mattress when he heard the muffled sound again and he stumbled backward onto the bed.

_Oh my God!_ Sebastian thought. Kurt was masturbating!

Sebastian suspected, but Kurt kept his thoughts about things like that very private. Kurt never seemed comfortable discussing anything sexual, and as his friend, Sebastian didn't pry. Even if Kurt hadn't been the Scion, it would have been too tacky to come out and ask. Sebastian imagined it had to be a tricky business for the Scion. Impure thoughts were considered evil, but the priests taught them that as impure creatures themselves there was some wiggle room. But where the priests sit on the bottom of the totem pole, the Scion sat perched on top, so how much wiggle room did Kurt have? Besides, exactly what did a supposedly perfect person fantasize about when they masturbated?

_"Sebastian."_

Sebastian's head snapped up at the sound; a moan so low, so quiet that a single breath would have drowned it out, but Sebastian still managed to hear it, even above the pounding water.

_"Sebastian."_

"Fuck," Sebastian groaned softly. He laid back on his pillows and closed his eyes, fighting with the decision between trying to block Kurt out and go back to sleep, or to let the temptation in Kurt's voice carry him along with it, if only in secret. A sudden thought of a naked Kurt standing beneath the water; steam rising up around his trim, muscular body; head thrown back, eyes closed, his hand fisting around his cock while he moaned Sebastian's name pretty much made Sebastian's mind up for him. He relaxed into the thin pillows and the stiff blankets as much as he could and listened to the muted sound of Kurt's voice.

_"Sebastian."_

Sebastian felt his body awaken, lured by that sound, his hand sneaking into his pants. Honestly, it was something he rarely did. As much as he sometimes detested being a priest, it was still his life, and masturbation didn't seem to fit well with duty, obedience, and responsibility. Sebastian joined the order to escape the long arm of his abusive father. After exactly twelve minutes in the dorms he had planned a way to escape. A minute later, he saw Kurt for the first time…and because of Kurt, he stayed. He made it his personal mission to protect Kurt. It was a vow he intended to keep.

Sebastian's hand moved slowly over his own cock, quickening his pace when Kurt continued to speak.

"Tell me you love me, Sebastian," Kurt murmured.

"I love you, Kurt," Sebastian whispered into his pillow.

"Tell me you want me."

If five words ever existed that could tear Sebastian completely apart, Kurt found them. Sebastian clenched his teeth, growling in frustration as he hit the bed hard.

"I want you, Kurt," Sebastian whined. "God, I want you."

"Tell me you need me."

Sebastian nearly choked. It was a plea, and it sounded so small and plaintive and unsure.

"Every day of my life," Sebastian replied softly to the empty air and the closed bathroom door.

Kurt's ramblings turned into a low, breathy pant and Sebastian could somehow feel beneath his skin and in his blood that Kurt was close. It was like a mist that surrounded him. He breathed it in through his mouth and let it fill his lungs. It expanded out through capillaries and arteries until it reached every last inch of him. Most of all, it completed him in a sensational way. It mended the rifts and filled the holes; every piece that had been torn away from him felt revitalized and renewed, and when he came over his fist, too caught up in the moment to even think about stopping, to consider the mess he'd have to explain when Kurt returned, there were so few of his actual cares left that he could almost convince himself that everything was good and normal in his world. He wanted that feeling. Even as it still lingered in the air around him he craved it. He knew he'd have to be careful not to become addicted, or it could change his relationship with Kurt forever.

The shower water stopped and reality bled in.

"Shitshitshit!" Sebastian chanted as he quickly cleaned himself up with this own shirt, shoving it hastily out of sight in the corner. He was debating changing the bed sheets when Kurt stepped out, completely dressed, skin damp and flushed from the hot water, a cloud of steam wafting around him and rolling across the graying carpet on the floor. Their eyes locked – Sebastian's from where he stood at the foot of the bed and Kurt's where he stopped just reaching the head of it, his face growing pinker by the second. They stared at each other with twin blank expressions that hid awkwardness and fear and embarrassment. Sebastian's heart beat out a steady rhythm that begged Kurt, "Please don't ask, please don't ask, please don't ask, please don't ask…"

Because whatever the Scion asked, his priest would have to answer.

It was a sin for a priest to lie to the Scion.

But Kurt wasn't just a Scion, he was also becoming a man – a man that he had always hoped would have inherited Elizabeth Hummel's grace, tact, and decorum as well as Burt Hummel's wisdom and easygoing nature.

"There's still some hot water left if you want to take a shower," Kurt said, hanging his wet towel behind the bathroom door and flicking off the light. "Though to tell you the truth, there wasn't really all that much to begin with."

"N-no," Sebastian stuttered. "No…I think I'm good."

Kurt climbed back onto the bed and looked up at his friend.

"Are you sure?" Kurt asked, a shy but surprisingly mischievous smile on his plump, pink lips.

Unusually plump, Sebastian noticed. Almost bitten…swollen…

His jaw dropped.

"Yeah," Sebastian confirmed, nodding a little more stringently than necessary.

Kurt chuckled once softly and slid into the bed on Sebastian's side.

"Uh…Kurt?" Sebastian approached Kurt, finally finding the will to move from his spot. "Don't you usually sleep on the right?"

"Yeah," Kurt agreed. "I usually do. I just like the energy on your side of the bed right now. Is that alright with you?"

"Yeah," Sebastian said softly, nodding, and climbing back in beside him. "Yeah, that's fine."

It amazed Sebastian how quickly he managed to fall back to sleep with Kurt in his arms.


	5. Company's Coming

**A/N:** _Warning for death of a major character (not Kurt or Sebastian)_

"Daddy! "Daddy!" Kurt called, racing down the staircase, proudly holding the large diamond-shaped kite in front of him. He'd been working on it alone in his room all day; painstakingly measuring the dowels for the frame and searching for the thinnest fishing wire he could find to bind them together. He spent hours tracing and cutting colored tissue paper, gluing it down and trimming the edges until the whole kite was seamless. When he finished, it looked more like a giant stained glass window than a child's homemade kite.

Kurt bounded down the stairs two at a time in his excitement, which made the silk tail of the kite bounce behind him as if they were flying together. Kurt felt like he _was_ flying, free as a bird in the sky, touching the clouds, soaring as high as the stars, maybe even finding a way to talk to his mother again.

Kurt and his father didn't even have time to mourn her properly after the car accident. They didn't go to her funeral or visit her grave. Kurt remembered so clearly the look in his father's eyes when they received the call that she was dead. It wasn't just anger, wasn't just sadness. It was fear. Fear so powerful that his dad packed anything they could fit into their Navigator and left Lima then and there.

Kurt swore that someday he'd go back to Lima and say good-bye to his mom, with an armful of her favorite white roses and baby's breath, and maybe this kite so she'd know how hard he had tried to find her.

Kurt could hear his father muttering when he dropped down off the last pair of steps and headed for the kitchen. His father did that sometimes – talked to his mom as if she were there, telling her about their day and how much he missed her. But his father wasn't alone. Another voice answered his father back, and when Kurt heard it, he froze solid where he stood outside the kitchen door.

Kurt heard a strange man's voice; a voice he didn't recognize, a voice he was certain he had never heard before. It wasn't a mean or sinister voice, but something about it frightened Kurt, like as if this stranger had the power to change Kurt's life forever. The man and his father talked together in the strained, hushed way adults do when they want to be sure that children won't hear.

"This is a matter of life and death," the voice whispered. "Not just for you and Kurt. Burt, the time has come. Even without the danger to his life, he'd have to come to the temple. We need to protect him. Elizabeth knew it. She had premonitions. That's why she called us before…"

"I can protect him," he heard his father hiss. His father's voice sounded dark and dangerous in a way Kurt had never heard before. Even though his dad wasn't talking expressly to him with that voice, Kurt took a defensive step back away from the door. "If he's not safe here, we'll leave. I'll take him out of the state, out of the country, wherever he can be safe."

"And where is that, Burt?" the voice retorted, volume raising slightly. "Maybe, _maybe_ you can hide him from the sects and the cults and the other orders, but what about the demons, Burt? There's no way to hide him from the shadows. They _will_ find him. What on heaven and earth do you think you, an acolyte, can do that hundreds of trained clerics can't? He's not safe out here, and you're being foolish to think…"

Kurt clenched his teeth, feeling his ire rising at the sound of someone insulting his father. His father wasn't a foolish man. In fact, Burt Hummel was the most practical adult that Kurt had known in all his eight years on the planet, and he wouldn't let anyone come into their house and tell him different. He left his kite on the sofa and pushed through the door, stomping into the kitchen loudly to make his presence and his anger known.

Two heads popped up and snapped in his direction, eying the boy that stormed into their private meeting with a scowl on his adorable, pale face. Burt reached out to his son, but the other man stood, and Kurt was surprised to see that he wore some kind of bright colored robes; the same kind of robe he had once seen his father and mother wearing in an old photograph that used to hang on their living room wall. The man was close to his father's age, and had the same world-weary expression on his tired face.

"Daddy?" Kurt eyeballed the stranger suspiciously as he spoke; his blue eyes never leaving the man's face. "Who is this?"

"Kurt, this is Tellemband," his father said, clearing his throat to rid it of their previous conversation. "He was a friend of your mother's and mine from a long time ago."

The man smiled down at Kurt with an expression of wonder that Kurt didn't quite understand. The man reached out a hand and Kurt took it politely, but the man jerked back as if electrocuted, his smile growing wider from the shock.

"He's a powerful boy already," Tellemband said, wringing his hands together. "Now, I must insist, Burt…"

"Say good-bye to daddy's friend," Burt interrupted, pulling Kurt behind the shield of his body. "We have a lot to do before nightfall."

Tellemband sighed, shaking his head.

"Actually, I do have to go to Westerville to pick up another boy."

Burt's green eyes went wide, his entire face perking up with a hopeful expression.

"You mean you found another…"

"No," Tellemband said softly. "A priest. One of the many."

Tellemband stepped closer to Burt, resting a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Burt," Tellemband said, "Company's coming. They're coming for your son."

Kurt saw his father's resolve slipping at those ominous words, and Kurt clung to his dad's hand, praying that whatever he decided to do it wouldn't mean turning him over to this man. Kurt didn't know how he could possibly survive without his father, especially with his mother gone. Burt squeezed his son's hand tight.

"We'll be fine," Burt said, and at that moment Kurt believed his father to the end of the world and back. They would be fine. His dad would protect him like he always did. There was nothing that could touch them. Kurt nodded on his father's behalf when the man in the robes looked down at him.

Tellemband knelt in front of Kurt. A small glimmer of gold caught his eye, and Tellemband looked around Kurt's neck where a thick gold chain rested with a simple cross dangling below his collar bone. Tellemband reached out to it, his fingertips hovering above it without touching it.

"Your mother gave you this," Tellemband said, recognizing the blessed charm.

Kurt nodded once in reply.

"Hold onto it," Tellemband said with a hint of urgency. "Whatever you do, don't take it off…don't let it go."

It sounded like an innocent enough piece of advice to Kurt; unnecessary though since he never took the cross off, but it seemed to anger his father.

"Go…now." Burt said the words clipped and tight. He pulled Kurt farther behind him until the boy was almost back up against the wall. "And forget that you saw us."

Tellemband took Kurt's hand quickly and muttered a few, quick words that Kurt thought he recognized, though they weren't in English. They sounded like Latin…more specifically a prayer in Latin that his mother used to recite. Kurt's mother taught him a bunch of different prayers, and Kurt learned them diligently, but only because he loved his mother. He wasn't sure that he believed in a God, especially now when this supposedly benevolent, loving, grandfatherly person his mother always talked about saw fit to take her away from him.

Tellemband rose to his feet before Burt could object to the prayer. With a single long glance back at Kurt where he hid behind his father's legs, Tellemband showed himself to the door. Kurt waited until the stranger's car started and pulled off down the road before he looked up at his father. Burt sighed and leaned against the wall. He pulled his baseball cap off his head and scrubbed a hand over his face and into his hair.

"Are we going to have to leave again, daddy?" Kurt asked, staring up at his father with sad eyes. He didn't like leaving their home in Lima, and he had grown fond of the cozy family farmhouse where they had taken refuge over the last few weeks. He wasn't quite ready to say good-bye again.

"I'm afraid so, kiddo," Burt said. He looked down at his young son, his tiny body hunched over with his eyes fixed on the hardwood floor. Maybe Burt should have gone along with Tellemband's plan. This wasn't any kind of life for an eight-year-old, running from people who would try to kidnap him and use him…or worse. Burt bordered on the edge of a decision, but for now he needed to cheer up his son. "But, if I remember correctly, weren't you making a kite?"

Kurt's head perked up immediately, his cherubic face lighting up with the thought of running through the field outside with his dad, trying to get his kite in the air, hopefully succeeding in sending a message to his mom as well.

Kurt retrieved his kite where he left it on the couch and dragged his father outside, grabbing his hand and tugging him towards the door. Burt and Kurt ran all around the dry field for hours trying to get his kite aloft, but not a single breeze blew. No matter how hard they tried the kite stayed grounded. The late afternoon didn't feel hot, but it was still and quiet, as if the whole world were holding its breath and waiting for something to happen.

After a while, Burt felt it, too, and he knew Tellemband was right. He had to get Kurt away.

Kurt fell asleep on the sofa while his father loaded up the car. Burt had become a pro at tetris-ing their belongings in the vehicle. He could have probably drawn out a map of exactly where everything fit if such a thing had been called for.

Night came early, unnaturally early, and even though Kurt fell to sleep hard and fast, he had a hard time warding off the nightmares. Several times he tried to pull himself from the oblivion he found himself trapped in, but it pressed in on him; wrapped around him like a thick, heavy blanket. No matter where he ran in his dream, he couldn't escape it.

He felt like he was being stalked.

Kurt's father tried to shake him awake, but for all of his struggling Kurt couldn't force himself to open his eyes. His father's voice wavered slightly as he tried to rouse his son, but then he finally gave up and picked Kurt's body up off the couch.

They barely made it out the farmhouse door before the demons arrived. They grew out of the shadows, seeped in from the darkness of the moonless night outside, formed their shapeless bodies out of the dust and filth covering the floor and hanging in the air. Their evil hissing and foul stench finally woke Kurt from his sleep, but this nightmare was worse than any he had before. He could feel the vile mist wrap itself around his wrists and ankles and try to pull him from his father's arms.

Burt muttered prayers between curses, flailing to find the right blessing, the right spell that would drive the demon forces back, or at least part a path that would lead to the car and to freedom. Quickly Burt became covered by the malicious force and he dropped Kurt to the ground, shoving him with the strength he had left out the door, but Kurt refused to leave his father, even as the malevolent presence attempted to consume him whole.

Kurt could feel the prayers his father uttered move through him. He felt his lips recite them even though these particular prayers he had no conscious memory of. He felt his body become hot; white hot. Burning from the inside out with a light brighter than any he'd ever felt or seen. It filled every inch of his body and shot out in all directions – from his eyes, from his mouth, from the follicles of his hair, from the pores on his skin. The light flowed out of him, filling the dark spaces, every corner reflecting the radiant glow. It singed the shadows, eradicated everything evil in its path, and when it was gone, it disappeared entirely; not a trace of it left behind.

The only thing Kurt could see in the doorway of the quaint little farmhouse he had hoped to call home was his father, his twisted body unmoving, unbreathing. That crushed him so completely he fell immediately unconscious, unaware of the muffled footsteps racing toward him.

The next time Kurt opened his eyelids, he saw inquisitive green eyes staring back at him.

Kurt remembered saying 'hello' to the owner of those eyes. That word should have been there, but the conversation wove in and out of his thoughts, as if it were coming at him in between two radio stations, with verbal static cutting through, overwhelming the words. Kurt heard a distant muttering, something he didn't quite recall in this memory, but he knew it. Even without having to hear it clearly, he knew the words being spoken. He had recited the prayer himself, but along with it, floating beneath it, was something he heard not with this head, but with his heart.

"Kurt?"

A soft, unsure voice pierced the void.

"Kurt…wake up."

Kurt recognized it. It reminded him of love and hope and home. He wanted so much to follow it, but he had trouble pinpointing its direction.

"Kurt, please wake up. You're having a nightmare."

Kurt felt something cool touch his feet, his hands, his forehead. A sweet, warm scent filled his nostrils when he breathed. Frankincense. It filled him with a tremendous calm and peace, drawing him away from his anxiety; leading him away from memories of suffering and pain.

He blinked once and saw those same eyes, green and clouded with worry, but these eyes were older and remarkably wiser. He blinked again, and Sebastian's entire face came into view, his cheeks pink, his hair beautifully bedraggled. Sebastian hovered above Kurt, shirtless, dressed only in his boxer shorts, straddling Kurt's legs, praying over him in much the same way Tellemband prayed over Kurt in his memory.

"That's the fifth nightmare this week," Sebastian pointed out when Kurt's eyes became focused and clear.

Kurt nodded, reaching a trembling hand to touch the cross hanging from the chain around his neck.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Kurt said with a sad shake of his head. "Not really. I…I saw my father die again. And I met you. Do you remember that?"

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

"I might have a vague recollection of that night."

Kurt smiled weakly. Sebastian felt his heart jump at that tremulous little twist of Kurt's lips, that in Kurt's pain Sebastian could still make him smile.

"Do you know what the dream means?" Sebastian asked, holding Kurt's quivering hands in his own.

Kurt felt like that frightened boy again when he looked into Sebastian's eyes. He stuttered over the first consonant, trying to get the sound past his parched throat.

"C-company's coming."

Sebastian's eyes swept across the darkened hotel room, at the front door and the broomstick standing straight and stolid beside it, at the pendulum on the bedside table that hung in place and didn't sway; all of these indicating the exact opposite of what Kurt said, but Sebastian trusted Kurt more than all the totems and symbols in the world.

"Alright," Sebastian said firmly. "We'll leave. Tonight."

Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him, trying to calm the tremors that shook his body. Sebastian shut his eyes, murmuring the first prayers of calming he ever learned in the hopes they would help soothe Kurt's troubled soul. Sebastian closed his eyes and concentrated on the words of the simple prayer, but with the scent of Frankincense in the air and Kurt's body in his arms, his mind started to drift.

* * *

Sebastian paced the floor of the priest's tiny quarters, like a large cat prowling behind the bars of a too small cage. He had managed to escape the dormitory twice in the first twelve minutes since the older priest dropped him off and left. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate what the priest had done for him. After all, his dad would have done some permanent damage for sure if he had managed to hit him across the face one more time with that wine bottle. As it was, Sebastian's nose throbbed from what the priest had diagnosed as a 'wicked break'. But Sebastian had been making moves to start his own money laundering scheme, and he couldn't do that from behind these walls.

Sebastian had underestimated the priests and their ability to keep him on lock-down. He thought for sure he could slip right by them unseen, since they all seemed completely preoccupied with the arrival of some new, important visitor; someone they had been waiting for forever by the sounds of things. After his second attempt to break free, an annoyed, squat looking man locked him in the priest's cell till his return. The term 'cell' was apparently what they called their bedrooms, but it was a perfect word for it. The room had enough space for a bed and a dresser. There were no posters or pictures on the walls except for a single cross, but most distressing was the lack of windows.

Sebastian decided he would wait for someone to open the door and make a break for it. It wasn't the most elegant plan, but it was the only one he had.

The muted buzz of conversation outside morphed into a distinct pair of voices coming his way, and Sebastian poised himself for a breakout.

"So that's really him?" a flat, unimpressed voice asked. "I thought he might be more, I don't know…more…"

Sebastian recognized that voice as belonging to the man that locked him in here. He would have to consider how much ground he might lose if he stopped long enough to kick him hard in the shin.

"Bite your tongue, Grumbald," another voice said. "He may be unconscious, but you are still speaking in the presence of the chosen. Whatever your perceptions of what he should be are flaws of yours, not his."

Sebastian knew this priest, too. He remembered that voice arguing with his father a few short hours ago.

"My apologies," Grumbald offered in an extremely unconvincing way. "I didn't mean any offense. But while we're on the subject of flawed boys, about this new acolyte you found today. You know, not every broken stray you bring in here can become a priest, Tellemband, and I won't have him. I have my own acolyte. Alistair. He comes from an affluent family. I have high hopes for him, and besides, his parents will be generous to the order."

"Money doesn't equal devotion, Grumbald," Tellemband scolded. "More than likely they're trying to buy their way to heaven. How come you never see this?"

Grumbald grunted, but it didn't seem to phase Tellemband in the slightest.

"I will be the boy's mentor," Tellemband said, the tone in his voice leaving no room for argument.

That didn't mean Grumbald wouldn't try.

"You…you can't be a mentor and take on the responsibility of caring for the chosen!" he groused indignantly.

The door to the cell swung open, and Sebastian took a step, preparing to bolt, but all thoughts of running left Sebastian at once when he saw the frail boy draped like a ragdoll in the priest's arms.

"Try and stop me," Tellemband challenged.

Grumbald swallowed, too apprehensive to continue arguing. His eyes fell past Tellemband and saw Sebastian smirking back at him. He sneered at the boy, but Tellemband pushed into the room, shutting the door behind him.

"So, I heard you tried to run away again," Tellemband said, addressing Sebastian without looking at him.

"You can't keep me here. You said so yourself."

Sebastian watched the man lie the unconscious boy out on his bed.

"That's right. Until you take your vows, you are free to leave whenever you wish and never return, but I don't think that's wise."

Sebastian looked over the boy's sleeping face. He had a few marks and scratches; nothing close to what Sebastian had with his now crooked nose and purple eye, but otherwise the sleeping boy's face was perfect; his skin flawless, and for some reason it angered Sebastian that someone would dare lay a hand on him.

"What happened to him?" Sebastian asked, curbing his temper. "Did his father beat him up?"

"No." Tellemband leaned over the boy and brushed a few stray hairs from his closed eyes. "His father died trying to save him. He was a good man. When he wakes up, I'll have to tell him that his father's gone, and he'll be very upset. He doesn't have any other family left in the world."

Sebastian sighed, sitting carefully on the bed beside the boy so as not to wake him.

"Who is he?"

Tellemband examined Sebastian critically, raising an eyebrow at his curiosity.

"You've been wandering around unattended. You've probably heard rumors of a special boy with peculiar powers."

Tellemband waited for an answer, and Sebastian nodded.

"Well, this is him. His name is Kurt. We call him the Scion."

Sebastian scrunched his nose, and then winced at the sharp stab of pain.

"What is that?" Sebastian asked. "The Scion?"

"Well, he's the last of a very important blood line." Sebastian looked confused at the priest's explanation. "He is a weapon, of sorts," Tellemband clarified, "for an epic battle between good and evil."

Sebastian scoffed and tilted his head, not sure whether to be annoyed that the old man was so blatantly lying to him or impressed by the creative story.

"You're shitting me," Sebastian drawled.

"Language," Tellemband scolded, and Sebastian rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not. Actually, he's the last Scion."

"So, why is he here?" Sebastian asked, deciding to humor the obviously insane man.

"The priests of this order are sworn to protect him."

Sebastian's eyes trailed back to the boy on the bed.

"So, if I stay, I have to protect him?"

Tellemband untied Kurt's shoes and slipped them off his feet while he watched Sebastian stare down at Kurt, biting his lip between his teeth.

"That's part of the job description, yes." Tellemband covered Kurt in a blanket. "But it's not a job we take lightly."

Tellemband saw the boy's mind working as he continued to pinch his lip between his teeth, eyes glued to Kurt's sleeping face. He lingered right outside the boy's view. Sebastian turned back toward Tellemband with a determined but repentant expression.

"I'm sorry I ran away," Sebastian said. "I promise I won't do it again. I want to stay. I want to become a priest and protect Kurt."

Tellemband crossed his arms over his chest and considered the boy's sudden apology.

"So, are you staying because you want to devote your life to the priesthood, or because you want to protect Kurt?" Tellemband asked.

Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest in a similar gesture.

"Does it matter?" he bit out.

Tellemband considered the boy's question.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, it doesn't." Tellemband gathered up a few books from his dresser. "I must go confer with the other priests. Would you mind staying with Kurt? In case he wakes up?"

"I'll stay," Sebastian said eagerly.

"You won't leave?" Tellemband asked sternly.

Sebastian threw his hands up in frustration at what he felt was an asinine question.

"Look, do you want me to say those stupid frickin' vows now?"

Tellemband fought not to smile at the young boy's impetuousness.

"That won't be necessary if you give me your word that you won't leave."

Sebastian took a deep, cleansing breath, and fixed the priest with the most sincere look he could conjure.

"I won't leave. I promise I won't leave."

Tellemband nodded, feeling confident that Sebastian would stay true to his word, and left the cell, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

The loud click of the door shutting startled Kurt. He blinked and his eyes fluttered open, darting around the dimly lit room, looking for danger, but instead finding another boy about his own age sitting beside him on a hard, narrow bed.

"Hello," Kurt choked out cautiously, licking dry lips.

"Hello," Sebastian said quietly.

Kurt coughed a few times and struggled to prop himself up on his elbows to get a better look around.

"Where am I?"

"You're at a temple," Sebastian said, trying to sound knowledgeable, "with priests."

Kurt furrowed his brow as he appraised the boy with the blackened eye and the bruised nose.

"Why are you here?" Kurt cocked his head.

Sebastian pulled himself up to his full height.

"I'm here to protect you," he said with all the authority he could muster.

Kurt pulled a face and almost laughed. Sebastian held his breath, hoping for the sound of Kurt's laughter.

"Are you a priest?"

"Sort of. I will be soon."

Kurt nodded, sitting further upright and crossing his legs beneath the blanket.

"What happened to your nose?" Kurt asked, pointing a finger at Sebastian's face.

"Oh…" Sebastian scooted back a bit, ashamed to admit to Kurt that his father had beaten him, especially in the face of the great sacrifice Kurt's father made. "I…broke it."

Kurt waved Sebastian over with his hand, and Sebastian crawled over the bed to join him, realizing there was nothing Kurt could ask of him that he wouldn't do. For a boy who had been dead set on starting his own criminal empire and being his own boss, it was an unusual feeling bowing to someone else.

"Here. It doesn't always work, but I'll try to fix it."

"Wh-what?" Sebastian asked, but before he could move away, Kurt placed his hand gently on the bridge of Sebastian's nose. He closed his eyes and whispered a few words. Sebastian felt a pinch in the bridge of his nose. He heard Kurt whimper and a purple bruise formed on Kurt's face, right around his eye. His nose swelled as if he had been punched but then the swelling disappeared, the black and blue bruise dissolving into the skin around it along with the few scratches and scrapes Kurt had to begin with. When Kurt opened his eyes, his alabaster skin was clear. Sebastian put a hand up to his own nose and tweaked it, amazed when it didn't send a spray of sharp pain throughout his face.

"How did you do that?" Sebastian muttered in awe, still twisting his healed nose.

"I don't know for sure. I think I absorb other people's hurt, and then it goes away," Kurt explained. "That's not all I can do, but the other stuff attracts too much attention."

"So you take the pain, and then your body heals you?" Sebastian reworded, trying to make sense of what happened to his broken nose.

"Yeah." Kurt shrugged. "I guess that's how it works."

"Well, don't ever do that again!" Sebastian said, trying to rid himself of the memory of Kurt sporting his black eye and broken nose. "Alright? Promise me?"

Kurt nodded, blushing red with a small smile on his face.

"I promise."

Kurt ducked his head and looked around again, his smile fading.

"My dad's dead…isn't he," Kurt whispered, toying with the edge of the blanket, not really asking but hoping it wasn't true.

"I…I don't think I…"

"What's your name?" Kurt asked abruptly.

Sebastian looked at Kurt with wide eyes. He felt an odd compulsion to answer Kurt's question.

"Sebastian," he said.

"Sebastian," Kurt repeated, and the sound of Kurt saying his name sent a thrill down Sebastian's spine. "Sebastian, protecting me doesn't mean keeping me from the truth. So, please…"

Sebastian sat up straight again.

"Yes," he said plainly. "Yes, your dad is dead. He died protecting you."

Kurt's face went pale and he gasped. He wanted to know. He needed to know, but he wasn't quite prepared to hear it so matter-of-factly.

Kurt stared at Sebastian for a second longer before his whole body crumbled. Sebastian rushed forward and caught him in his arms, holding his thin body as Kurt cried into the blanket.

"It's okay, Kurt," Sebastian murmured into Kurt's hair. "It'll be okay. I'm here, and I'm not going to leave you, okay?"

"Okay," Kurt sniffled, but he cried again, and Sebastian held him tighter.

Outside the cell door, Tellemband held his books to his chest, finally walking away to the great hall, knowing that the Scion, for the moment, was in good hands.

* * *

Sebastian held Kurt as tight now as he did then, hushing him gently, running oil soaked fingers through his hair to keep him cool and calm. They held on to each other, tucked into their own sphere of sanctity and silence…until that silence broke with the crack of the broom falling to the floor.

Sebastian dropped his head to Kurt's shoulder and breathed out, his entire body shuddering.

"Yup," Sebastian said. "It's time for us to go."


	6. Love and Punishment

**A/N:** _Warnings for nudity, loose interpretation of religious themes, talk of demons. AU with supernatural elements._

Kurt snickered, smothering the sound by shoving his face into his pillow.

Then he giggled, muffled by the polyester fiber-fill, but loud enough to be noticed.

He crossed his legs at the ankles and squeezed tight, trying desperately to stay still, but it was torture. Simply torture.

Some of it he could ignore. Parts of it even felt good. Too good. He thanked God that he was laying on his stomach or else it would be embarrassingly obvious just how good it felt. But the lower Sebastian got on his back, the closer to his spine and his hips, the more ticklish it became.

Sebastian painted a swirl that dipped over Kurt's hip bone and that did it. Kurt scooted out of reach, destroying an entire row of runes.

"Kurt," Sebastian whined, reaching for the already pitch black washcloth by his knee. "I need you to lie still, or I'm going to have to do the whole thing over again.

Kurt blushed. That actually didn't sound like a bad thing.

"I'm sorry," Kurt said, repositioning himself on the bed, curling his arms beneath his pillow and hugging it tight. "I'm just really ticklish right there."

Sebastian knew. He knew all of Kurt's ticklish spots. He knew the ones that made him hum from pleasure, and the ones that made him giddy, and the ones that seemed to relax him the most. For days since they drove closer and closer to the coast, Sebastian had felt the presence of a new threat following them; a threat that could be evaded by cloaking the Scion in a spell written in runes – runes that Sebastian spent every night painstakingly painting onto Kurt's body with specially prepared plant dyes.

It took at least three hours to complete, and was the epitome of a labor of love; but it also felt like a punishment.

Kurt.

The Scion.

The Chosen One.

But most of all, his Kurt. His gorgeous Kurt, spread out naked on the bed they shared.

They traveled like boyfriends.

They lived like lovers.

Sebastian would give his life for Kurt, and not just because he made vows to do so; but Sebastian would never, ever be able to touch him. Not the way he wanted to. Not the way he fantasized about.

Sebastian sighed, smiling at the flush of red that covered Kurt's entire pale body.

Seeing that blush on Kurt's skin filled Sebastian with hope. Without a single word spoken between them, that rise of color made Sebastian believe that inside this boy, this savior, whose destiny required him to remain pure, was the soul of man who wanted him – heart and soul and flesh and blood wanted him.

Sebastian looked down the length of Kurt's body – his strong back, his muscular legs, his perfect ass…

Sebastian ran his tongue over dry lips.

Kurt peeked over his shoulder, suddenly shy as his gaze locked with Sebastian's intense green eyes staring down at him.

"Are you going to finish?" Kurt asked, his voice soft, struggling to hide his own need for the shirtless boy hovering over him.

It took a moment for Sebastian to realize that Kurt had spoken to him.

"Y-yes," Sebastian stammered, returning back to his pot of dye and his brush. "Yes, of course, Scion."

Kurt frowned. He didn't like Sebastian calling him Scion, but Kurt understood why.

He did it when he needed to be grounded. He did it when he needed to remind himself of his duty above all – above himself, above his personal feelings…

…above love.

Sebastian finished down Kurt's back in silence, his hand shaking slightly as he painted runes over Kurt's ass and down the backs of his legs; Kurt biting back a moan at the delicious sensation it created, trying not to make this more difficult on Sebastian than it needed to be – especially in light of what was coming next.

Sebastian drew the last rune, the one that locked the spell, on the soles of Kurt's feet. He sat back on his calves and looked down at his work, allowing it a moment to dry. He couldn't see the rise and fall of Kurt's back any more and Sebastian knew that he held his breath.

Sebastian knew because he held his breath, too.

Sebastian swallowed hard to give himself courage.

"Turn over, Scion?"

Kurt lifted himself up onto his hands and knees, taking longer than necessary to flip onto his back to give himself as much time as possible to stop the rapid racing of his heart.

Sebastian kept his eyes focused on his knees out of respect, his fingernails digging crescent moons into the skin of his thighs as he waited for Kurt to settle down on the bed.

Sebastian's eyes flicked to Kurt's face as Kurt looked up at Sebastian, and their gazes met, innocence and heat colliding in their combined stares.

Kurt was the first to roll his eyes and laugh, trying to ease the awkwardness.

"You know this is ridiculous," Kurt said, giggling again as Sebastian began a pattern over his collar bone. The spell written on his back didn't continue to his front. Instead, Sebastian drew the secret symbols of the angels, covering every inch of Kurt's skin, saving the symbols of the archangels to protect his core organs and his heart. He also decorated Kurt's face with these signs, but he saved that for last, since he felt it was a sin to cover Kurt's beautiful face. Sebastian knew these symbols by heart, and didn't need to concentrate as hard to recreate them, so Kurt would talk to him and tell him stories and jokes, trying to lift the veil of tension that surrounded them during these sessions.

"What's ridiculous about it?" Sebastian asked, curling a symbol around Kurt's pec, avoiding the sensitive skin surrounding his nipple. "It's important to keep you safe."

"Well, I should get the chance to do it to you."

Sebastian cursed himself quietly when his already suffering cock took interest, and he allowed himself to slip and imagine Kurt straddling his naked body, painting symbols of protection on his chest.

"But, the demons aren't looking for me," Sebastian explained condescendingly.

"They'd kill you if they found you anyway," Kurt said sadly. "It wouldn't matter."

Sebastian's hand stuttered and he paused with his brush poised above Kurt's heart.

"You look like me," Kurt continued, his voice thick with remorse, "we spend all of our time together so you carry my scent…"

Sebastian shifted over Kurt's body, letting the brush fall again and continue its work.

"That makes me the perfect decoy." Sebastian plastered a smile on his face that he hoped would fool Kurt into thinking this was all a part of some masterfully calculated plan.

"You're not a decoy," Kurt said quietly but with a force of emotion so great it almost shattered Sebastian's resolve to pieces.

It would be so easy to take Kurt, to make love to him, to end this for Kurt right now. Then they could be together.

Sebastian wasn't a sympathetic person; he never was. Responsibility, duty, loyalty – to what? The priesthood? The human race? That kind of devotion didn't exist in him for anyone except Kurt. It was for Kurt. It had always been all for him.

Sebastian made a shitty priest, but he'd make one hell of a husband.

Let the priests find a new Scion.

Who cared if it took another thousand years?

Who cared if there wasn't another Scion left?

Sebastian and Kurt could stand hand in hand and watch the end of the world together.

Then Kurt's soul would ascend to the heavens and Sebastian would burn in hell for all eternity because he had soiled the chosen champion and destroyed the only chance of salvation for the world.

Sebastian glanced into Kurt's face and saw his intelligent, perceptive blue eyes watching him. Sebastian was sure that Kurt had gained the ability to read minds, or at least emotions, somewhere along the way. Not that he would need that ability around Sebastian.

Sebastian was an open book; always had been where Kurt was concerned.

Sebastian smiled again, and this time it was softer, more genuine.

"If you want to paint the runes on me, you can, Scion," Sebastian said. "I'll teach you."

Kurt nodded and closed his eyes, tipping his head up and away while Sebastian quickly painted a long, swirling symbol down the length of Kurt's cock. Sebastian knew this one bothered Kurt the most, so he learned to finish it in seconds.

"I'd like that," Kurt said, releasing a shuddering breath through his lips when Sebastian was done. "But I'll put the runes on your chest, and the angelic signs on your back."

Sebastian squinted at Kurt in confusion, but Kurt beamed up at him with unrestrained joy over his brilliant idea.

"Why?" Sebastian asked, carefully moving down to Kurt's knees.

"This way when we lie down in bed together and you wrap your arms around me the demons won't know where you end and I begin. Then I can keep you safe."

Sebastian bit his tongue hard to keep the tears in his eyes from falling onto Kurt's skin and ruining his work.

He didn't need to soil Kurt in order to be condemned to hell.

He was already there.


	7. The Power of Love

**A/N:** _Here is Sebastian training Kurt to use his powers to protect himself from danger. (Warning for mention of destroying an already dead pig so, blood, organs, a few gross descriptions. Also loose interpretation of religious themes.)_

Kurt cleared his mind and concentrated on the body laid out before him a short distance away – dead, cold, and an unsettling shade of bubblegum pink. He focused on the inner cavity of the animal, pictured an empty space in its ribcage somewhere in the neighborhood of its lung and its heart. He tried to fill it with his energy, tried to ignite it with his fire…

…tried to combust it from the inside.

With his fingers pressed to his temples, he narrowed his eyelids and peered at the dead animal, expecting any minute that it would do something spectacular – explode, implode, maybe get up and tap dance. Either way, the only thing he truly succeeded in doing was giving himself a phenomenal headache.

Kurt dropped his hands to his sides and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I…I can't do it," Kurt muttered. "I can't destroy it."

"What's wrong, Scion?" Sebastian asked.

Kurt frowned.

_'For one thing I wish you'd stop calling me that!' _he screamed in his head. He couldn't really be angry with Sebastian. They had to distance themselves during Kurt's training. He needed to limit any sort of distractions. Kurt knew that. The logical side of his brain accepted it.

The rest of him, however, wanted to blow this all off and sit on the bed of their hotel room, wrapped in Sebastian's arms, and flip through the pages of the latest _Vogue_. Instead of taking out his frustration on his young protector, he took a deep breath in, closed his eyes, and let it out slowly through pursed lips.

"I can't kill that poor little piggy," Kurt said, opening his eyes and motioning to the carcass of the porcine lying about twenty feet away from them. Sebastian bought the animal from a butcher in the town over from where they were staying and on the way back he found an abandoned supermarket parking lot in the middle of scenic nowhere for them to practice in, miles away from prying eyes and far enough from the highway to insure their anonymity.

"First of all, you're not killing anything. It's already dead," Sebastian chuckled sarcastically. "Second of all, it's not a _little_ piggy. That's a full grown hog. It weighs 250 pounds at the least. You saw us try to get that thing in the truck."

Kurt wanted to chuckle at the memory of Sebastian and an elderly butcher struggling beneath the weight of that huge pig, but one look at the vulgar thing, decaying in the afternoon sun, slack jawed, sunken eyes staring, empty, vacant, made him want to vomit. His clammy hands shook, and he prayed to God that Sebastian didn't notice.

"Explain to me why you're teaching me to set pigs on fire with my mind again?" Kurt asked, stalling his lesson for as long as possible even though the sun burned hotter every second and flies had started to gather in droves. Something about trying to tap into his powers disturbed him. These powers he had, wherever they hid in his soul, felt like a living, sentient being that didn't belong inside him. They stripped him bare till he was cold and hollow, and when they filled him back up it was with something sinister and dangerous. The few times it had happened, Kurt didn't consciously call upon them. His body seemed to sense the danger around him and protect itself. It fractured him from his physical body; his spirit left and another consciousness took over. He didn't like the feeling. He didn't want to lose himself to it and not be able to find his way back.

"Look," Sebastian said, standing behind Kurt and putting comforting hands on his shoulders, "you need to learn how to protect yourself. You have to assume that your life is always in danger, alright?"

"So, you think I need to protect myself from an army of pigs?" Kurt asked, turning to look at Sebastian over his shoulder and arching an eyebrow in his direction.

"No," Sebastian laughed, but not sarcastically this time, "but pigs are physically similar to humans. They have a similar mass and muscle to fat ratio, a similar flesh density, and we decay at roughly the same speed."

Kurt's eyes went wide and Sebastian blushed.

"I'm not going to even begin to ask how you know all of that," Kurt teased.

"Shut up," Sebastian said, turning Kurt back toward his target, "I watch a lot of late night crime dramas. Besides, don't hate on pigs. They can be mean motherfuckers."

Kurt gasped quietly at Sebastian's language. He never heard any of the priests in the temple curse, and Sebastian always had a mouth on him, but away from the order and the rules that constantly burdened them day after day, Sebastian seemed to curse more.

Kurt swallowed hard thinking about it.

Honestly, it kind of turned him on, but that attraction was a feeling he couldn't afford to have, and it was definitely not something he should be thinking on when he was attempting to use his divine grace to light a pig on fire.

"B-but that's just humans…and humanlike creatures," Kurt pointed out. "What about demons?"

"Sorry, but Gil Grissom didn't quite clue me in as to what animal best represents a demon, so we're going to have to cross that bridge a little later."

Sebastian smiled smugly but Kurt's blank expression killed that smile pretty quick.

"Moving on…okay," Sebastian said, running his hands down Kurt's arms in an attempt to get him to relax. "Let's try this again. Now, you need to find your center."

Kurt sighed.

"You keep saying that," he complained, "but I don't know what my center is!"

"That's alright," Sebastian encouraged. "It's different for every Scion. Pick the emotion in you that's the strongest."

"But how do I do that?" Kurt groaned, throwing his hands up in the air. He felt like he was running around in circles, trying his hardest and getting nowhere fast.

"Calm down, first of all…" Sebastian pressed his chest against Kurt's back so Kurt could feel the rhythm of his breathing. "Breathe in…and out…and in…and out…"

Kurt concentrated on the movement of Sebastian's body behind him, following the ebb and flow of Sebastian's breath against his neck. His entire body responded to Sebastian, every cell seeking him out, letting Sebastian lead him from his distress and anxiety into a place of soothing calm.

"Now close your eyes," Sebastian whispered, "and try to find a thought, a memory, anything that evokes a strong feeling. Some Scion's tried to be warriors and thrived on a thirst for vengeance, some tapped into the deep despair of everything they lost, but I don't think either of those emotions are in you."

Kurt tried to conjure the most powerful memory he could.

He started with memories of his mother – baking in the kitchen on Sunday mornings, having tea parties in the front yard, playing dress up with her favorite blue sundress and a pair of sensible shoes. He thought of the day she died, the way his father's face crumbled when he got the call, and how he packed up everything they owned and left without even saying goodbye.

"That's it," he heard Sebastian's excited voice clearly against his ear, his warm breath tickling Kurt's skin, making him feel alive. "Whatever you're doing, keep it up."

From somewhere in the quiet distance he heard a vague sizzling sound, and when the wind shifted he smelled the pungent odor of burning pork.

Kurt delved deep, opening doors in his memory that he had tried to keep locked – long afternoons with his father fixing cars, eating cucumber sandwiches on the front lawn when Burt Hummel tried to make up for the loss of Kurt's mother, that fateful day when the demons invaded their tiny farmhouse and took his dad away from him.

Tears poured down Kurt's cheeks as the memory of that night flooded his mind. Shadowy creatures dragged his father away and somehow Kurt's divine light managed to decimate them. Kurt's chest tightened, his breathing stopped, and the effect was instantaneous. The skin of the dead animal lit into flames, crackling with the heat, popping and sizzling as it shriveled up and peeled away.

"Yes!" Sebastian crowed. "Yes! You did it!"

Kurt felt Sebastian's lips touch his cheek; a gentle, tender press, nothing more.

"You did it, Kurt," Sebastian whispered into Kurt's ear, and all of a sudden, everything changed. The images in his mind shifted to thoughts of Sebastian.

_"I'm here to protect you."_

_"It's okay, Kurt. It'll be okay. I'm here, and I'm not going to leave you, okay?"_

_"I could just call you gorgeous. I think it suits you better."_

_"It'll be you, Kurt. It doesn't matter who I'm with. It will always be you."_

_"…I rolled you over on your stomach, and kissed you over your shoulders…"_

_"It's important to keep you safe."_

Suddenly, Kurt wasn't controlling the fire that made the pig's flesh burn.

He _was_ the fire.

His eyes snapped open, everything from the whites to the pupils filled with a pure, blue flame. It encased his body, made his alabaster skin glow. He barely focused on the pig, his mind simply identifying its location and the grotesquely burnt thing exploded from within, pieces of flesh and charred organs shooting out in all directions, missing Kurt and Sebastian but drenching everything else around it in putrid blood.

Filled from head to toe with this extreme power Kurt knew he could pinpoint anyone, anywhere in the world…and eliminate them. Kurt's conscious fought to take over and push the blue flame away. As quickly as the power came, it dissolved away, leaving Kurt drained. He swayed on his feet, his knees buckling slightly. Sebastian grabbed him from behind and spun him around; when he did Kurt could clearly see the remains of the creature he had destroyed, the black asphalt parking lot painted red with its blood.

"This is great, Kurt!" Sebastian cheered. "This is amazing!"

It took several long moments for Sebastian to finally realize that Kurt wasn't celebrating with him. He set Kurt down on his feet and turned the young savior to face him. His heart melted when he saw the fresh tears in Kurt's eyes.

"Kurt," Sebastian said softly, "why are you so upset? You did it! You learned the secret to tapping into your powers. You can protect yourself."

"No, Sebastian," Kurt said through his heartbreak, "I learned to destroy." Kurt sniffled, dissolving into his own sorrow, falling into Sebastian's arms, and in his head he cried, '_I learned to channel my love for you into a power that can destroy.'_


	8. The Beast That Lies Within

**A/N:** _Warning for mention of blood (not injuries that bleed, just the presence of blood), minor burns, loose interpretation of religious themes, and sexual thoughts._

Sebastian watched Kurt as he pretended to sleep, but he wasn't fooled. He knew Kurt better than that. He knew all the turns and corners in the labyrinth of Kurt's compassionate heart, his exquisite mind that saw flowers where most people saw desolation and hate, his respect for duty and his unending loyalty – his desire to be a man the way his father was a man, through hard work and dedication to those things that were important not just to himself but to others, too. Kurt was growing into that man more and more every day, and not by baby steps, either; by tremendous leaps and bounds.

Which was why Kurt's behavior confused Sebastian, the fact that Kurt lay so still, so far away from him, barely touching, shrugging off any attempt by Sebastian to hold him. It had been days since their training session; days since Kurt had gained the ability to call upon his powers of protection; powers that Sebastian knew Kurt would rely on one day to save the world. Kurt needed to develop them, strengthen them, refine them, but for now all Kurt wanted to do was curl in on himself and lock himself away. After Kurt had started crying in the parking lot that day, he didn't stop for hours, and when he didn't seem to have any tears left he shut down completely.

This more than anything frightened Sebastian.

He had never seen Kurt brought to his knees by the weight of his responsibilities.

Even on those days when Tellemband would skirt around the issue of what Kurt's life would be like after the supposed War to Save Humanity was over and the battle won (won, of course, because there was no other option), silently but not definitively implying that Kurt might not _have_ a future, Kurt never bent to the pressure or the inevitable.

So why this? Why now?

What changed?

Whatever it was, Kurt wouldn't tell him.

* * *

Kurt didn't sleep for days, not really, and exhaustion scraped him thin, physically and emotionally. Determined that Kurt needed to build up the power within him, Sebastian started Kurt on a rigorous training regimen. Kurt didn't want the power to become stronger, but he couldn't deny Sebastian. Kurt obeyed quietly, gritting his teeth and biting his tongue to keep from screaming every time he used his power, or more to the point, let the power use him.

But training till his heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces wasn't the hardest thing he had done since he had his terrible breakthrough. The most painful, gut-wrenching thing he had done was to shut Sebastian out. _Assume your life is always in danger_…that's what Sebastian had told him. Well, now Sebastian's life was the one in danger, except this time it was in danger from Kurt; Kurt and this Godforsaken power that had latched onto him and wouldn't leave him alone. Now that he had tapped into it, called for it by name and allowed it to do its bidding through him, a tiny pool of it lurked inside him, reluctant to give up its hold on his soul. It had found a place to take root, and those roots grew fast and deep. He had become the vessel the priests taught him about in their many long and monotonous lessons. Kurt knew this power had no intention of letting him go.

Sebastian tossed Kurt headlong into training, trying to improve Kurt's skills, focusing on strength over all, and Kurt was succeeding. It had gotten so that he could pretty much annihilate anything with just a thought, and that scared Kurt. He felt the power taking over, filling every cell in his blood, every fiber of his muscles, every fold in his brain. He had tried to hold the power back by reverting to thoughts of his parents, the happy and the bittersweet, in hopes of toning down the unrelenting force within him, but that no longer worked. It knew where his true strength lie hidden, and more and more it fed on it. His thoughts of Sebastian were the only fuel this beast would accept. After he had used every memory he had of Sebastian, from the first moment they met, every time they'd fallen asleep in each other's arms, and every second in between, he started tapping into his fantasies, fantasies of sweet kisses they had yet to share, light touches, softly spoken words.

By the time he had raped every beautiful, intimate thought he had ever had of them together to feed this power, Kurt felt completely and thoroughly violated. But that wasn't enough. The power needed to be fed, even when he wasn't using it. He dreamt of Sebastian more and more – vivid dreams of them together; holding each other, lips pressed against skin, mouths exploring…

Some nights he woke up sweating, shuddering, cumming, his skin glowing, radiant blue heat filling the room, washing everything with its light.

It frightened him to think what might happen if the power got away from him.

What if he hurt Sebastian in his sleep, completely unaware of what he was doing?

What if he killed Sebastian?

So Kurt stayed awake all through the night, counting off the hours as they ticked slowly by, and much to his dismay he knew that Sebastian stayed awake with him.

Eventually lack of sleep wore away at them both, stealing their patience, their humor, their sanity, until the demon of their conjoined stubbornness almost did them in.

It was a month into training, after the hundredth carcass had been destroyed, that Kurt finally snapped.

"I…I can't do this anymore," he whimpered, his whole body shaking, awash with anger, confusion, and shame. He turned away from the carnage and stormed away, slipping in the oily red wetness covering the once black asphalt, his legs carrying him weakly back to the truck.

Sebastian's eyes followed him, befuddled by his reaction when he was doing so well. A long line of blood dripping down Kurt's left elbow caught Sebastian's attention and he raced after Kurt, almost skidding on a pool of blood himself.

"Kurt! Kurt!" Sebastian called after him. "You're cut! You're bleeding!"

"No, I'm not," Kurt threw over his shoulder with obvious aggravation. "It's pig's blood! Everything's covered in pig's blood! I feel like Carrie!"

"Kurt!" Sebastian reached out a hand and grabbed Kurt's upper arm, the skin still hot from the enigmatic blue flame. "Kurt, talk to me." He turned Kurt to face him, the flicker of heat still lurking behind the pupils of Kurt's eyes. Kurt's face twisted at Sebastian's touch, but he didn't try to pull free. He stared down at the arm that held him instead of looking into the young priest's eyes. "Kurt, I'm not permitted to lie to the Scion," Sebastian said, praying that Kurt would look up at him again. "It is considered a sin. But I am your priest, and you must confess to me as well." Sebastian sighed, a heavy sound carrying a weight Kurt often forgot he bore. "How can I help you if you don't confide in me?"

The anger in Kurt's body made way to guilt and he felt himself break apart, as if the anger was the only thing left keeping him together.

"I hate this," he ground out between clenched teeth, a low hiss that was so far from being actual words that if Sebastian didn't know Kurt better he probably wouldn't have understood.

"What?" Sebastian asked. "What do you hate?"

"I hate this power," Kurt muttered. "I hate what it's doing to me, what I've become. I hate that it's taking over and I can't seem to control it." Kurt didn't want to continue but he felt compelled at this point to reveal everything to Sebastian. "It's taken the best parts of me, and I can't run away from it."

Sebastian shook his head, reaching out his other hand to take hold of Kurt's arm.

"I don't understand, Kurt," Sebastian said. "I don't know much about this power either. I mean, I've read about it and the priests told us about it. I know it might be scary, but to a point, it's meant to be. It comes from a source that's as wrathful as it is loving, but how can it take the best parts of you?"

Kurt didn't want to tell him but Sebastian was right. Sebastian was his priest, and as much as Sebastian bent to the Scion, the Scion needed his protector, his priest, to keep him on the right path, and to keep the demons at bay, even the ones that lived inside of him.

Kurt licked his lips but there was no moisture left in his mouth, every bit of it stolen by the confession he had yet to make.

"My center…" Kurt couldn't look at Sebastian while he spoke and he cursed himself for his lack of courage. "My center, where all of this comes from…" Kurt's eyes scanned the parking lot and the morbid necropsy that surrounded them, "is my feelings…for you."

Sebastian stepped back, but not far enough to take his hands off of Kurt. This was the first time Kurt allowed Sebastian to touch him in weeks, and there wasn't any reason in heaven or on earth that he intended to let Kurt go.

"What feelings?" Sebastian asked, but it sounded more like a plea.

Kurt fixed his eyes back on the hands that held his arms. He sucked in a long breath, the glow beneath his skin preparing to spring back to life.

"That I love you," Kurt whispered, the sound traveling only far enough past Kurt's lips to strike right at the core of Sebastian's heart without a single syllable going astray. "That I'm _in_ love with you."

Sebastian wanted to laugh. He wanted to dance. He wanted to run and run and run. Kurt loved him. Kurt was _in_ love with him. He wanted to pick Kurt up in his arms and spin him around. He wanted to kiss him hard on the mouth and steal all of his breath away. Instead he took a deep, steadying breath and a good long look at Kurt, eyes downcast and squeezed shut, his skin still glowing blue. Sebastian could feel it crackle beneath his touch, the heat of it just uncomfortable enough to warn him away but Sebastian didn't let go. For the first time Sebastian saw what Kurt was really hiding. Without having to say anything else Sebastian knew why Kurt was in so much pain. It all made so much sense now, the past few weeks, Kurt's sudden distance, the lack of sleep. In hindsight it was blatantly obvious, and Sebastian felt so foolish for not having seen it before.

"Oh, Kurt…" Sebastian's voice was a gentle breeze to Kurt's ears. "Oh, Kurt. I'm so sorry. I should have…"

"No," Kurt said, smiling for the first time in what seemed like forever. "You were just doing your job. I should have been better at doing mine."

Kurt thought that would be the end of it - revealing his feelings, telling Sebastian the truth; he thought for sure that was the first step on the road to solving his problem. He had hoped that maybe somewhere in Sebastian's collection of tomes and scrolls given to him by Tellemband would be some insight on how to control the power now that he knew what the source of it was, or at the very least how to curb his desires.

But there was nothing. Sebastian looked and looked, re-reading every journal, every book, translating ruins and glyphs over and over some nights. They still didn't touch, and since they couldn't touch, Sebastian refused to sleep until he came up with an answer. After the local police crime scene team stumbled upon their 'training grounds', Sebastian decided this was as good a time as any to relocate their operation and maybe, just maybe, a fresh start would give them some much needed perspective.

Sebastian moved them into a hotel that was more like a seedy, low budget apartment complex where rooms were rented by the week. At least it had a kitchen. Kurt loved to cook, and Sebastian needed to remind Kurt of all those things that he loved. They were on the fourth floor, next to a lonely old woman whose front patio was filled with scraggily brown plants, most of them months past dead, which she fawned over, tending them with all the confidence in the world that they would soon bloom again.

"Look at what Mrs. Clawson from next door gave us." Sebastian grinned, holding out a dusty black pot with a single thorny branch sticking out, leaning to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Kurt glanced up at it with the tiniest flick of his glowing blue eyes and scoffed.

"Why bother?" Kurt's uncharacteristically sardonic tone made Sebastian flinch. "Why does she fuss over those poor dead things? Such a waste of time."

Sebastian put the plant down gently on the kitchen table and looked at Kurt, the subtle glow now ever-present, lighting the dark room he sat in, sulking on the sofa with wide, unblinking eyes, like a child of light hiding in a cave and surrendering to a life in the dark.

Sebastian was losing him.

Enough was enough.

"That's it, Kurt," Sebastian said, bounding to the couch in three steps, "we're getting out of here."

Kurt didn't resist when Sebastian gathered his body up into his arms, lighter than Sebastian ever remembered him being. He covered Kurt in a blanket and sprinted down four flights of sketchy stairs to their truck parked below. Sebastian wasn't sure where he was going but he turned their fate over to the spirits that governed their lives, guided their path. Those phantom caretakers took the wheel from Sebastian's hands and without knowing the where, they ended up exactly where they needed to be – an abandoned department of transportation depot on the far side of town, not much more than a vacant black lot hiding behind what remained of a cement building, used to store old drums full of water for use during the odd natural disaster.

Sebastian parked in an area where the building completely blocked the view of their vehicle from the street, though the area seemed fairly deserted. Kurt watched Sebastian with vague curiosity as the priest lined the barrels of water, fifteen in all, in a single file line horizontally in front of them, about fifty yards away.

"Okay, Scion," Sebastian muttered when he was done, opening Kurt's truck door and pulling him from his seat, "we started this together, and now we're going to finish this together." He half-walked, half-dragged Kurt's body a distance from the truck in full view of all fifteen drums. "You have the power inside you, and it's strong. You just need to learn how to control it."

"Sebastian," Kurt mumbled, "I can't…"

"Yes, you can!" Sebastian interrupted harshly. "Damn it, Kurt! You can do this. You have to concentrate."

"Sebastian…"

"No!" Sebastian yelled, turning Kurt's face to meet his eyes. "No! You're giving in, and I'm not going to lose you. Not now. Not to this."

Sebastian propped Kurt up, helping him stand on his wobbly feet. Sebastian stood behind Kurt, preparing to catch him if he should fall. Sebastian fought to calm himself, to steady the shaking in his hands that came with the idea of Kurt slipping farther and farther away from him.

"Now, look at the barrels and listen to the sound of my voice."

Kurt nodded. Sebastian wasn't sure whether or not it was intentional but he would take whatever cooperation he could get. Sebastian leaned close to Kurt's ear and sighed, letting the warmth of his breath bleed out over his neck. That single touch ignited the spark within Kurt completely, and before Sebastian could say or do anything else the first barrel exploded, sending a spray of water all around them. Sebastian swallowed hard, praying for strength, praying for guidance, but not for himself; for his Kurt.

"You can have me, Kurt," Sebastian whispered, trailing a finger down Kurt's shoulder to his elbow, and then further down to his wrist, "anytime you want me, anyway you want me. I am so in love with you, sometimes I can't breathe."

The second barrel exploded like the first, water shooting up like a geyser and landing on the dry cement with a hard splat. Kurt's entire body shuddered.

"W-why are you doing this to me?"

"You need to learn how to cage your power, Kurt," Sebastian murmured against Kurt's skin. "If your love for me is your center, than you need to face it, not run away from it. I can't watch you destroy yourself when I can help you."

Kurt swallowed his desire and his whole throat ached.

Kurt felt Sebastian's breath continue to warm his skin as he waited, waited for Kurt to object, waited for Kurt to pull away.

"I've loved you from the first second I saw you, before I knew what love was, and…and I've dreamt of having you," Sebastian stuttered, tamping down his fear of telling Kurt his deepest secret, the only one he had ever kept from Kurt, "dreamt about having you every single night since I was thirteen years old."

The third barrel didn't just explode, it disintegrated. The water spread over the floor in a puddle where the barrel had been, but the metal was gone. Kurt's skin turned blue - blue and clear as ocean glass, the heat of the fire that encompassed him rolling off his body in waves.

"I dream about being inside you…" Sebastian didn't relent, even as the next two barrels imploded, crumbling at the exact same time like crushed soda cans, thin, frail, collapsing inward, the sound of it punching the air, "dream about your soft skin and your heat, jeez…" Sebastian dropped his head to Kurt's shoulder, touching it briefly and then hovering so as not to get burned. "You must feel amazing."

Tears collected in Kurt's eyes only to evaporate away and never make it down his cheeks, but that didn't mean he wasn't crying; it didn't mean his despair didn't exist, that it wasn't real. He had the same dreams, more so recently than before, and he wondered if maybe this power had punctured a hole into Sebastian's mind and allowed them to share this experience to feed its own greed.

Kurt loved Sebastian – loved him more than duty, more than honor, more than his own life, though he knew that expressing that love would only end in tragedy. What they had, together or apart, was sacred, and he refused to let anything, anything at all, use it for any reason, and definitely not this.

He would not be corrupted. He would not be a pawn.

Kurt Hummel was the Scion, and the power that he wielded belonged in him and him alone. If it was fueled by love then so be it, but he was taking back control.

"I want to kiss every inch of your body, Kurt…"

Kurt let Sebastian's words weave their way into his heart and cast their own magic. He let them blend with his energy and form a thread, something strong, indestructible, something that would last the way their love would last beyond evil and demons and supernatural quests, beyond his own death if that's truly what his future held in store for him.

Another barrel blew, shot straight into the air raining water down on them, missing them by mere inches when it crashed back to the ground. Kurt turned toward Sebastian, turning his back to his targets which seemed clear in his mind regardless, and pressed their foreheads together, Sebastian grimacing against the sting of Kurt's skin burning into his.

"You think that you don't have a future, Kurt," Sebastian said, raising his voice slightly, fighting over the sound of the drums exploding one by one in rapid succession in order to be heard, "but you do. You have a future. A future with me. And I swear that when this is all over I'll make this up to you. Every day that I didn't kiss you, every day that I didn't make love to you. I'll make it all up to you. I promise we'll be together."

The fifteenth barrel blew and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body, his forearms singed by the blue fire.

"I love you, Kurt," Sebastian confessed quietly as his skin burned. "Forever I'll love you, and that's never going to change."

The quiet that followed the destruction of the last drum startled Sebastian. So many explosions, one after another, that they rang in his ears, but now nothing but a faint sizzling sound which he assumed by this time was his own skin.

Everything around him was cool; the air surrounding him comfortable with the chill of a coastal wind blowing through his hair. His burns dissolved, absorbed back into his skin, the scorch marks disappearing as if they had never existed.

Sebastian looked into Kurt's eyes, still alight with a simmering glow, like a dying ember. Kurt's eyes rolled slowly skyward and Sebastian followed his gaze up to where a diamond-shaped piece of metal, torn from one of the barrels, spun above their heads. It whirled left and right, bending and unbending here and there, melting at the rough edges and corners, and then dropping to the ground with a metallic tinkle. It hit the asphalt much more delicately than Sebastian would have thought, and when it touched down, Kurt's legs buckled beneath him and he fell along with it. Sebastian caught him quickly, cradling him to his body, feeling the drumming of his heart beat against his chest.

Sebastian carried Kurt to the truck and helped him carefully into his seat, reclining the back so that Kurt could lie down. He felt like such a bizarre contradiction of success and failure. Kurt looked at peace, breathing deeply and evenly in sleep. He wanted to leave and get Kurt as far away from there as possible, but curiosity nagged at Sebastian, pulling him back to the spot and that piece of melted metal lying on the concrete.

Sebastian crept up to it, measuring his steps in case he needed to bolt back to the truck, unsure as to what the piece of metal was, or what it had turned into. As it came into view, the butter yellow metal from the drum having turning into a burnished gold, Sebastian stopped…and smiled, as a priest proud of his charge; as a man in love, touched by such a token as the heart laying at his feet. Sebastian crouched down and picked it up, feeling the weight of it in his hand and then folding his fingers around it.

It was Kurt's heart, and he made a silent vow to keep it safe.

He drove at full tilt back to the hotel, parked in the same fortunate spot, and carried Kurt up the stairs, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with a limp human body dangling in his arms. He laid Kurt out on the bed, every muscle in his body relaxed, his face young and innocent looking, and for the thousandth time Sebastian cursed a world that would burden such an amazing man with its sins, and a God that would force so much sacrifice onto one of his most devoted followers.

Sebastian climbed into bed beside Kurt, not sure how he would feel about being held while he slept, but as he was throwing more and more caution to the wind every single day Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body and buried his face into Kurt's neck.

Hours they slept, or it could have been days, but when Sebastian opened his eyes, light streamed in through the parted curtains, and Kurt was gone.

Sebastian bolted upright in bed, panting heavily, straining to focus in the dim light in search of his charge whom he found, much to his relief, puttering about the kitchen, putting dishes into the sink and a carton of milk back into the refrigerator. Kurt stood straight as he walked, at ease with his body, the telltale blue glow gone. He turned back to Sebastian at the sound of the bed springs squeaking and caught the look of worry in Sebastian's eyes, and Sebastian saw the burn in Kurt's. The fire within them was there but faint, and it had changed. It wasn't foreign and overwhelming, or dark as Kurt often feared. It was Kurt's flame, subtle and warm, entirely under his control.

Kurt walked over to the bed and sat beside his priest, scooting as close to Sebastian as he could. He took Sebastian's hand for the first time in over a month without persuasion or prompting. Kurt smiled and Sebastian knew that whatever answer Kurt had been looking for, he had found it. Kurt turned his eyes, deeply blue and full of all the things he hadn't given a voice to, over to the kitchen counter. Sebastian's eyes followed and landed on a cake – perfectly domed shape, lightly dusted with sugar, and so rich Sebastian conjured the taste of it in his mouth without even taking a bite.

Or maybe that was Kurt sharing the taste of it with him through his thoughts, through this new connection they seemed to have, an unobstructed window into each other's minds. He pictured the two of them lying together in bed and feeding each other with their fingers, laughing and smiling without a single worry in the world instead of the world being their worry.

In the dim light Sebastian saw the familiar bluish glow. It crept over Kurt's skin in a wave from where his hand held Sebastian's, rushing up his arm, through his neck, illuminating every vein and artery as it went, over his cheeks and finally lighting up his eyes. On the counter, a single candle fizzled and then flickered, a small droplet of flame consuming the wick, and nothing more.

No massive explosion. No earth-shattering destruction.

Sebastian's jaw dropped.

"Kurt, you…"

"Wait," Kurt said, his voice soft as the dim light in the room but all encompassing; it spoke to Sebastian's heart and his heart alone. Kurt lifted Sebastian's hand slowly, reverently to his mouth, his eyes of twinkling blue flame still locked onto Sebastian's eyes of green, growing wider as Kurt brought his lips closer to Sebastian's skin.

Kurt's lips brushed Sebastian's hand, feather light and soft. When he pressed a kiss to the back of Sebastian's hand, Sebastian sucked in a sharp breath. Kurt's eyes darted away, but not out of shame or shyness. They directed Sebastian's gaze again to the opposite side of the room where the pathetic little rose bush clung to life. Another ripple of blue light flowed over Kurt's body, chasing itself on the surface of his skin, and before Sebastian's eyes the rose bush straightened, its desiccated brown stems turning plump and green, the drooping buds reforming, transforming from a morbid grey to the blush of pink that nature had originally gifted them.

Sebastian held on tighter to Kurt's hand, the kiss that Kurt placed on the back of it tingling like a strike of electricity.

"How…how did you know you could do that?"

"I actually found out by accident," Kurt said. He looked over to the window and a sweep of his eyes pulled the curtain back, giving Sebastian a clear view of Mrs. Clawson's patio, all of her previously dead plants bursting with life, flowers blooming fuller and larger as Kurt looked at them. The deceptively frail old woman danced among them, giggling with her hands pressed to her mouth and tears in her eyes. "It never dawned on me that I could do something as wonderful as that."

"Kurt…" Sebastian took his hands and kissed them, feeling giddy inside. "I am so proud of you."

Kurt nodded, but in the midst of Sebastian's joy, Kurt looked melancholy. Kurt leaned forward and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's torso, pulling him back down onto the bed beside him.

"I'm sorry, Sebastian," Kurt said, happy to be back in Sebastian's arms.

Sebastian chuckled.

"The Scion doesn't have to apologize," he muttered, almost as if by rote. Kurt sighed. He looked up into Sebastian's face, his signature half smile twisting the corner of his mouth.

"My name is Kurt Elizabeth Hummel," Kurt said with a hard, determined stare, "and I am apologizing to the man that I love."

Sebastian's half smile turned into a fuller, more genuine one as he pulled Kurt close to his chest.

"Apology accepted, Kurt." Sebastian placed a hidden kiss into the part on Kurt's head. "Just please, don't shut me out again."

Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut tight against the light in the room and the blue glow in Kurt's eyes, and breathed in to catch a whiff of Kurt's scent – his vanilla shampoo and the chocolate from the cake, the candle burning on the kitchen counter, and Kurt, plain old Kurt, who smelled like spring and sunshine to Sebastian and always would.

The only other words he spoke to Kurt he said with his mind and his heart.

_Don't shut me out, Kurt. I can't live without you._


	9. The Sleeping Heart

**A/N: ****_This is a short and sweet little one-shot that follows 'The Beast That Lies Within' where Sebastian discovers the significance of the metal heart totem that Kurt made. Romance, fluff, supernatural elements, loose interpretations of religious themes._**

Sebastian tried to sleep but a shadow in his mind kept getting in the way. He pulled his body closer to Kurt, chasing the warmth of the Scion's body, the soft sounds of his breathing while he slumbered at peace for the first time in too long, and that smell of jasmine and vanilla that reminded Sebastian of warm spring breezes and his beautiful daydreams of being with Kurt, together as friends and lovers, with no barriers between them. Apart from that (though he might not ever outright admit it) even though his job was mostly to protect the Scion, Sebastian felt much safer with Kurt wrapped in his arms, and not for the simple reason that Kurt had learned to tap into the limitless power that existed within him. Sebastian felt that the moment they touched, when Sebastian held Kurt close and they slept side by side, the evil of the world disappeared. It paused, along with time, the rising of the sun, hell even the rotation of the earth, and nothing could touch them or what they had together, as innocent and unconsummated as it needed to be. Though they struggled and fought and ran during the day, the shield of true love guarded them while they slept.

All of these things soothed Sebastian. They always did, but for now they didn't bring him any closer to rest.

A presence lurked nearby that Sebastian couldn't identify.

The metal heart that Kurt had fashioned out of a piece of rusted metal from the old water barrel he had destroyed fascinated Sebastian. No longer a pitted piece of old steel, it was smooth and polished, a luxe-looking gold that gleamed without light. He carried it with him everywhere. The totem seemed to _want_ him to carry it. He wore lounge pants with pockets to bed so he could keep it with him while he slept. It sang to him, and when he held it in his hands and looked at it, it seemed to vibrate with power. The power didn't lure Sebastian to it so much as it simply intrigued him. It reminded him of something that he read when he was young, before he joined the order. No, he didn't read it; his mother read it to him in those days before she died. Sebastian racked his brain trying to remember the title to the stupid book. He vaguely remembered the plot had rats in it, rats that could talk, and there was a stone – a precious, valuable stone with special powers that slept until given to someone with courage in their heart.

The stone slept.

Courage of the heart…

He let his mind ponder these things when he finally drifted away to sleep with Kurt curled up against him until one night his brain stumbled on the answer.

_Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH._

The necklace in the book…the blood red stone; it held a power that lay dormant. It waited patiently for someone worthy to come along and when they did, it would hear their call. But the totem he held onto was different. He could feel it breathe.

This heart didn't sleep.

It actively, consciously waited.

Sebastian had a feeling it waited for him.

One night, the heart became tired of waiting.

Sebastian awoke to the blue flame in Kurt's skin glowing dimly, pulsing in waves, heating his pale skin. Sebastian felt a crackle of electricity echoing in response, and that echo came from the metal heart in his pocket. Sebastian reached in slowly, half expecting the metal to be scorching hot but it was cool to the touch. It sparked and hissed, and when Sebastian brought it closer to Kurt's skin, an arch like lightning threaded between them.

The heart, Sebastian realized with his jaw dropped in awe, had been infused with Kurt's incredible power.

Sebastian pulled the heart away and the thread of lightning broke, but the heart continued to glow. Kurt's skin grew brighter in response.

"Amazing," Sebastian whispered, looking over the metal object, peering at it intently. Suddenly, his mind flooded with a hundred memories that weren't all his own.

Memories of the day Kurt and Sebastian first met - that painful broken nose he had and how Kurt had fixed it.

The two of them sitting side by side, studying together in class, passing notes when the priests weren't paying attention.

A rainy afternoon spent trying on each other's clothes for no good reason.

Kurt splitting his dinner with Sebastian, giving him half of his chicken Alfredo and Sebastian giving Kurt all his baby tomatoes.

The first birthday cake Kurt taught Sebastian to make and how it tilted precariously to the left, but Kurt told him it was the best cake he had ever tasted.

Sebastian's daydream of making love to Kurt underneath their favorite willow tree, the flush on Kurt's porcelain skin beneath the setting golden sun, and his lips - rosy red and swollen from kissing - begging Sebastian for just one more…

The final fantasy, the most powerful one, the one that struck Sebastian straight through the heart like a hot branding iron, making sure it stayed imprinted there forever, was one of Kurt's.

Kurt and Sebastian on their wedding day...and the intimate details of their wedding night. Sebastian slowly stripping a black tuxedo from Kurt's body, button by button, pressing kiss after kiss to Kurt's skin as Sebastian exposed every creamy inch, threading his fingers through Kurt's walnut-colored hair, the blue eyes that locked onto his with a look of love and trust – eyes that glowed slightly with blue fire.

This fantasy was new.

It was recent.

It was after Kurt learned to control his blue flame.

"Oh my…" Sebastian moaned, his eyes drifting shut, and all of a sudden a stunning heat, not painful but overpowering, shot through Sebastian's veins. It filled every cell of him, from his toes to his brain. He felt whole, complete, overwhelmed.

Sebastian opened his eyes slowly, focusing on the golden heart he held clutched in his hand, unfolding his fingers to get a better look at the object. What he saw was his reflection staring back at him…his own face with glowing blue eyes. The sheets, the bed, the whole room, everything around him, shimmered with its light.

Sebastian was engulfed entirely in Kurt's blue flame.

Sebastian's body shuddered at the thought - the thought of Kurt's power moving through him, inside him. Sebastian could feel him on his body, covering his skin, that smell of jasmine and vanilla warm and potent just beneath his nose.

The idea of it playing in his mind made the flame glow brighter. Sebastian raised his other hand to his face and his eyes went wide. It was consumed completely by a ball of blue fire.

"Holy…and…shit…" Sebastian murmured as he moved his hand left and right, watching the flame shift with the twist of his hand.

"Sebastian," Kurt muttered, turning to face the priest with his eyes still closed, "don't curse so much."

"Uh…Kurt?" Sebastian whispered, not wanting to upset the flame in any way by talking too loudly. "Kurt, open your eyes."

Sebastian saw the glow in Kurt's eyes before he even opened them, his lids illuminating from within in the presence of another blue flame. Kurt peered at Sebastian through narrowed, sleep heavy lids, but when he caught sight of the fire alight on Sebastian's skin, his eyelids popped open.

"Holy…and…"

"Shit," Sebastian finished for him, "yeah. I know."

"But how?" Kurt reached out a hand, fingers dancing in the blue flame, trying to ascertain its origin.

"I think…" Sebastian showed Kurt the metal heart, "that this has something to do with it."

Kurt held his hand over the heart. Thin tendrils of white lightning shot out at him, not in a threatening way, more as if in acknowledgement of where it came from. Kurt plucked the heart out of Sebastian's hand and the flame that covered Sebastian's skin blinked out.

"Try to do that again," Kurt advised, feeling a little bit of his own blue flame recharging the heart in his palm.

Sebastian concentrated on his hand, staring at his skin, trying to get the blue flame to reappear, but nothing happened. Kurt slipped the heart into Sebastian's palm and his hand burst into flames, the fire climbing high with the strength of his focus. Sebastian laughed.

"What…what do you think it means?" Sebastian asked. Kurt sat up straighter and shrugged. He couldn't look away from the fire on Sebastian's skin. He felt a connection to it. It reached out from Sebastian to get to him, and in return, it flowed from him.

"Let me…" Kurt stared into Sebastian's eyes and Sebastian felt a surge, a charge of energy that started from the tips of his hair and traveled in a ripple down his back.

"Interesting," Kurt whispered.

"Wait…what?" Sebastian asked. "What did you just try to do?"

"I…uh…" Kurt ducked his head, looking down at his hands with a sheepish smile on his face, "I tried to set your hair on fire."

"What?" Sebastian laughed.

"Well, I needed to know if this blue fire would protect you…" Kurt swallowed hard, "from me."

"Kurt," Sebastian said, reaching out and touching his hand lightly, sucking in a sharp breath when the fire united, "this fire _is_ you. I was never in any danger."

Kurt bit his lip and stared at their joined hands, the rush of blood in his cheeks visible through the blue flame as a deep purple stain on his skin. Sebastian smiled at the surreal beauty of it all.

Sebastian the priest and the Scion, his protector. It made Sebastian's heart flutter.

"Well, what do you think we should do now?" Sebastian said. Kurt blinked once and extinguished his own flame. Sebastian tried, but he couldn't do it. He didn't have Kurt's skill or finesse. Kurt raised a hand and trailed it down Sebastian's skin. The blue flame followed him, winking and expiring beneath Kurt's hand.

Kurt's lips cocked into a mischievous grin.

"Do you know where we can go buy a pig?"


	10. Owner of My Heart - Part 1: Confessions

**A/N:** _So here is the start of a two-part chapter for the Scion verse, 'Owner of My Heart'. This follows after 'The Sleeping Heart'. In this chapter, Kurt teaches Sebastian how to control the power of the blue flame, and Kurt tells Sebastian something that's been on his mind lately. Romance, angst, AU, supernatural elements, loose interpretation of religious themes. Warnings for sexual tension._

_I am the light._

_I am the fire._

_I command the flame, the flame does not command me._

Sebastian calmed his mind the way Kurt showed him, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth to the rhythm of his heart until his whole body ebbed and flowed like the spiraling breeze around his feet or the waves crashing on the nearby shore, his entire being down to his soul vibrating with power. He concentrated on the quarter sitting fifty feet away, balanced in the mouth of a glass cola bottle. With the heart totem in his pocket and Kurt by his side, he called upon the power of Kurt's blue fire, tapping into the fantasy that never failed to fuel the flame within him – a single kiss, charmed and innocent, one that they had not yet shared; the picture in his mind so clear he could call it forth without any effort.

He envisioned kissing Kurt for the first time here, on the shores of the Atlantic at sunrise, with the first rays of morning light throwing sparkles across the water. He pictured those sparkles reflecting in Kurt's eyes, his true eyes, so brilliantly blue they put the waking sky to shame. They would sit side by side on the cool sand and watch the world come alive together. Kurt would shiver when the wind came in off the water, and Sebastian would scoot closer, putting an arm around his shoulders, huddling their bodies against the cold. Kurt would laugh that adorable, bashful laugh he got when Sebastian held him, his eyes drifting to his clasped hands so he cheeks wouldn't color.

Sebastian's hand would creep up Kurt's back to the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, scratching gently at his scalp until Kurt melted into his touch. At some point Kurt would turn to look at Sebastian…he always did…and Sebastian would inch forward, holding his breath, waiting to see if Kurt would pull away.

But he wouldn't, because this was their time to be together. They would have earned it, however they were meant to, whatever sacrifice needed to be made. It would be over and done. Sebastian pictured the look on Kurt's face – a little frightened and slightly unsure, but overshadowed but Kurt's overwhelming trust, because Kurt trusted Sebastian, and Sebastian would never betray that trust.

Sebastian would rub his nose along the tip of Kurt's and make him laugh, make him relax into Sebastian's embrace. This kiss itself would be just the lightest brush of Sebastian's lips against Kurt's, but the thought of that touch, of Kurt's skin against his, sent electricity crackling all over Sebastian's skin, and burned in his stomach like the golden rays of the rising sun.

Sebastian smirked when the fire lit his eyes.

Kurt stood close to his pupil and watched as Sebastian's eyes glowed blue, subdued, controlled, and in a second the coin spun madly on its pedestal. It took less time for Sebastian to conquer the blue flame than it had for Kurt. Sebastian had his fair share of decimating pig corpses and exploding water barrels, but he had Kurt to guide him. With the power that the fire gave him, Kurt was able to breach Sebastian's mind, entering through that window that had been created and show him how to manipulate the fire, how to control it, how it felt when he truly had it under his command, and where the power came from – what memory to use to tap into it.

That kiss was as much Kurt's daydream as it was Sebastian's.

"See, now you're just showing off," Kurt grumbled playfully.

"What?" Sebastian mocked since he was, actually, showing off. "You told me to move the quarter and I did. See…" Sebastian pointed to the coin twirling in the air, "it's moving."

"At least you didn't rip it to shreds this time," Kurt said, calling the coin to him with a blink of his eyes and a fire of his own. "We need it to do the laundry." Kurt grabbed the coin from the air when it came to him, pressing it into his palm and feeling the heat it held – Sebastian's heat. He put the coin deep into his pocket. There was no way it would find itself stuck into the coin slot of a common, every day laundry machine. "You know, I think you're better at this than even me."

"Never," Sebastian said, picking Kurt up from behind and spinning him around, letting the blue glow on his skin call to the flame in Kurt until Kurt's porcelain complexion glowed with the fire. "The power belongs to you. I'm just borrowing it. No one can control it the way that you do."

Kurt's whole body warmed at Sebastian's words, and another war began within him. He didn't want to feel pride in Sebastian's praise. Pride was a deadly sin, but he couldn't help himself. He smiled sadly at a loss for his own feelings, and not only the ones about Sebastian and the love that they felt for each other, but for his entire life – the people he'd lost, the teachings he thought he needed to survive, his future which was still so incredibly uncertain.

One new and confusing thing about not living at the temple with the priests was that Kurt and Sebastian felt free. Kurt had to admit that for once it felt nice not having to bow to ritual or set study times. They slept late, ate leftover pizza and cake for breakfast, sometimes lounging out in the sunlight on the balcony of their rented rooms and letting time drip away around them. They were playing at being adults, doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted though their lives, ironically enough, still revolved around service. Sebastian lived to serve and protect the Scion, and the Scion lived to serve and protect the world. After a while Kurt realized how much he had relied on the schedule the priests set and all the things that they did in preparation for the impending battle – preparing their souls to become worthy. Things he and Sebastian hadn't done since they left the temple.

Kurt wanted to feel happier, to forget about responsibility and duty and lose himself in the comfort of Sebastian's arms, but even as Sebastian twirled him around, spinning him out till he lost his balance and couldn't help but laugh out loud, his smile slipped and Sebastian noticed. Sebastian knew that a pain brewed somewhere in Kurt's heart; ever since they started sharing their deeper dreams and fantasies with one another he had felt it. Sebastian didn't call attention to it and when Kurt looked up into Sebastian's face his smile returned full-force, the shadow of whatever doubt lurked in his mind having passed. Sebastian smiled back and nipped at the tip of Kurt's nose to hear him laugh again. Sebastian shared in his laughter, but secretly he hoped his Scion would come to him with his concerns in time.

Night fell quickly and they spent it mostly in silence. After dinner, Sebastian read from an intimidatingly large volume of druidic rites and spells; worn and embossed leather cover full to bursting with fragile, waxed pages as thin as onion skin. Kurt puttered about the kitchen with a granite mortar and pestle, grinding the herbs and floral inks they used to decorate Kurt's chest with protective spells and runes, except this time it was Kurt's turn to paint the symbols on Sebastian's skin, and the more he thought about it, the more his heart raced and his body trembled.

It was all he could do to focus on not setting the powdered mixture on fire.

Kurt showered first while Sebastian added oils to the ground powder and spoke the necessary blessings over it; blessings Kurt had never been taught but which Sebastian promised to teach him. While Sebastian showered, Kurt looked over the cheat sheet Sebastian had made for him. Kurt shook his head in quiet awe. Sebastian drew all these strange symbols from memory. Kurt knew a few of them, but he was at a loss for the rest, and as for the translation…

It was humbling. If not for the circumstances of his birth, he would be useless in this endeavor. Kurt wouldn't even know where to begin to learn all of this. He spoke French and he read Latin; if he squinted his eyes and tilted his head he could muddle through reading Greek, but these were all scribbles and gobbledygook. Sebastian learned this, spent most of his young life learning this, in the hopes of someday protecting him. Sure all the young acolytes learned it, but he remembered Sebastian at the temple, remembered the long hours they spent together out in the courtyard under the willow tree, or sitting in his cell, when Sebastian would read and read and study and read like the world depended on him devouring and memorizing every word, every intonation.

Kurt looked around him, at the room where he sat, a step up from their first little rat shack of a motel room definitely, but still musty and shabby, obviously not the sort of place an ex-trust fund baby would choose to live.

It seemed like such a waste, such a shame. Sebastian worked so hard, studied so much, for this? To live here? To spend every second running away from shadows in the dark and those same people that vowed to protect him from them?

Still Sebastian studied, every second that he could, in an effort to keep Kurt safe at all times. It never ended for him, and he did his job well. The order should be proud that they produced such a competent priest.

But if the order ever found them, they would most likely kill Sebastian on sight for kidnapping the Scion.

Kurt had never wanted to stop being the Scion so much before, but for Sebastian's sake, he would give it all away.

He had to stop thinking that way. He needed strength or the moment Sebastian stepped naked out of the shower Kurt _would_ give it all away.

The bathroom door opened and Kurt walked around the bed, putting the piece of furniture between them. Sebastian had his towel tied around his waist and when he caught sight of Kurt standing nervously by the bed, he chuckled, misinterpreting the pallor on his face.

"Don't worry," he said with a gentle smirk. "You can't mess it up too badly. And if you do, I'll just shower again and we can start over."

Sebastian tossed Kurt a wet wash cloth, and Kurt broke from his stupor to catch it. Sebastian stared boldly into Kurt's eyes as he climbed on the mattress, loosening the knot on the side of the towel and draping it across his lap to make Kurt a little more comfortable.

Sebastian watched Kurt straddle his hips, settling himself slowly, taking heed of the towel on Sebastian's lap. Kurt laid the cheat sheet flat on the bed, and then reached for the paintbrush and the pot of ink, positioning everything where he could reach it and where the little pot wouldn't spill as he moved.

Kurt stalled for a moment, stuttering a few times before he could bring himself to commit to a spot on Sebastian's skin and start writing. When the paintbrush made contact with Sebastian's skin and Kurt swirled it deftly, branding Sebastian with the first mark, Sebastian almost moaned. He hadn't given Kurt enough credit during this process. How could Kurt endure this so patiently, so silently, when one touch sent Sebastian's mind whirling with thoughts of Kurt's body beneath him, whimpering, writhing, gasping with pleasure?

The paintbrush shook in Kurt's hands as he tried to carefully paint the elegant rune symbols on Sebastian's chest. Kurt tried his best not to be distracted by his beautiful body. Kurt had no problem whatsoever looking at him. Sebastian's body was a gift from the creator, and like his own it was blessed, but Kurt had a hard time thinking of the blessing beneath him without wanting to run his tongue over every inch of it. Try as Sebastian might, as much as he knew this was difficult for Kurt, he couldn't help the way his green eyes darkened when Kurt shifted down his body; or how his tongue swiped over his lower lip when Kurt bit his own in deep concentration, fighting to keep his hand steady. Sebastian wanted desperately to suck that lower lip into his mouth and kiss it, to make Kurt tremble more.

At some point between embarrassment at his body's reaction and striving for perfection, Kurt's eyes clouded over, and Sebastian knew that whatever had been bothering him earlier bothered him still, though he had yet to talk with Sebastian about it. Sebastian knew he should wait a day or two and give Kurt space to sort out his thoughts, but now that they seemed to share so many of those thoughts he didn't like it when Kurt put up walls between them. He was spoiled by the relationship they had, not just as priest to Scion, or friends even. Their relationship was something unique and special. It was all their own. They created it, and it existed only for them. Sebastian found that he didn't want Kurt's full disclosure; he needed it. The more that they shared of themselves with each other, the more they had gone from being two separate people to becoming a single entity.

They were one in their thoughts, in their feelings, and in Kurt's fire.

Theoretically, there was only one more thing they had yet to share.

"You know, it's been a while since I've taken a confession from you," Sebastian said, watching Kurt work on a particularly difficult symbol over his right flank. Kurt sighed when his hand slipped too far and he ruined the mark. He picked up the damp washcloth from where it lay beside his knee and wiped the ruin away with immense care so as not to wreck the rest. Sebastian's breath hitched at the delicate touch. "Why don't you tell me what's on your mind?"

"I…" Kurt wiped away the mark, relieved that he was able to leave the others untouched. "I don't really have anything to confess."

"I'm not saying that you do," Sebastian clarified. "But, it might help relieve some of the burden." Sebastian took Kurt's free hand and laced their fingers together, giving Kurt a connection to hold on to. "I know there's something on your mind…something you're not telling me…something you've blocked me from seeing." Kurt ducked his head, his cheeks coloring with shame. "Please, I can't help you if I don't know what it is."

Kurt gazed down at their joined hands and sighed. It was strange how they could be in bed together, a shirtless Kurt straddling Sebastian's mostly naked body and yet this point of contact, their hands with fingers twined together, felt so blissfully intimate.

"I want to get married," Kurt said, his voice barely a breath above a whisper. "I want to have children." Sebastian's eyes widened where he looked up at Kurt, and Kurt rolled his eyes. "Not today, of course, but someday, and I'm beginning to think that's not going to happen for me."

Sebastian brought Kurt's stained hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. He let his mouth linger there, brushing his lips over Kurt's skin, thinking about Kurt's confession.

"Kurt, if you were a regular human being, and you could marry anyone you wanted, would you?"

Kurt turned away for a moment, and when he tipped his face up to the ceiling Sebastian could see tears collecting beneath his eyes.

"Of course I would," Kurt whispered.

Sebastian waited a moment with Kurt's hand pressed against his mouth.

"Would you marry me?" Sebastian asked.

Kurt dropped his eyes to meet Sebastian's, his expression blank but his eyes glowing blue to mask the heartbreak within them.

"Of course I would."

Sebastian smiled, the grin of a man finally at peace with his place in the world.

"So, let's do it."

Kurt pulled his hand out of Sebastian's grasp, scuttling backward to remove himself from the sting of Sebastian's ridiculous idea.

"What…what the…what are you talking about?"

Sebastian sat up quickly and grabbed Kurt's wrist back, pulling Kurt toward him.

"Let's get hand-fasted."

Kurt stopped and stared, confused.

"Hand-fasted?"

"Yup." Sebastian wrapped an arm around Kurt's waist and held him steady to keep him from trying to get away before he finished. "We'll do it ourselves. We don't need to find someone to perform the ceremony. We don't need any witnesses. Just you and me and maybe God if he wants to come. What do you say?"

A small smile passed over Kurt's lips for a second and disappeared as his cheeks colored more.

"But, we wouldn't be able to…to consummate…"

"We don't have to," Sebastian assured him. "Historically hand-fasting has been used to pledge one person to another for all sorts of reasons, like a contract. The tying of the hands can symbolize the consummating of the marriage. It can be temporary, last a year and a day, last for all eternity…or last until the love lasts." Sebastian kissed Kurt's hand again gently. "How long do you think our love will last?"

Kurt dropped his head against Sebastian's shoulder.

"For all eternity."

Sebastian smiled.

"That's right, gorgeous," he said. "Besides, the ceremony is for us. Why does it need rules?" Sebastian chuckled. "How can rules even apply to us anymore? You're a magical holy weapon and I'm…" Sebastian's eyes shifted to the wall behind Kurt's shoulder before he answered, "I'm the _bastard_ son of a _bastard_ crime boss."

Kurt raised his head and eyed Sebastian's profile – set and strong and full of so much unresolved regret. Kurt reached out a hand and pulled Sebastian's eyes back toward his.

"You're a priest," Kurt said with reverence and respect. On anyone else's lips it would have sounded false, but on Kurt's it sounded like the highest honor ever bestowed to a mere human being.

"Priests answer to the higher power," Sebastian said. "They devote their lives to what's true and good. Their motives are selfless." Sebastian shook his head. "My motives never were. I'm no priest. Not like the kind you deserve."

Sebastian turned away again to face the wall.

"Tell me why you did it then?" Kurt pulled his hand from Sebastian's grasp and looped his arms over Sebastian's shoulders.

Sebastian smirked.

"You know why I did it."

"Tell me again?" Kurt asked, his smile shy, his hand twirling the brush in his hand behind Sebastian's neck. "Please?"

Sebastian fixed Kurt with a determined, unashamed stare.

"I did it because I knew I wanted to be with you," he admitted. "I knew I would do anything to keep you safe. I did it because being a priest was never my calling. You are."

Kurt rested his forehead against Sebastian's and sighed happily.

"Then you are the best protector I could have ever asked for," Kurt said, giggling with nerves when he noticed how close his mouth had come to Sebastian's, his lips lush and tempting and begging to be kissed.

Kurt leaned back a hair before he could persuade himself to indulge.

"And, yes, Sebastian. Yes, I will marry you."


	11. Owner of My Heart - Part 2: Revelations

**A/N:** _So this picks up after the chapter that comes right before The Kiss, which is also titled 'Owner of My Heart'. Owner of My Heart has four parts total, each one with a name that emphasizes the theme of the chapter. Warning for anxiety and a memory of child abuse (spanking of a child by an adult with a wooden paddle)._

Sebastian licked his lips and swallowed, trying to place the taste tantalizing his tongue.

"Mmm," he moaned, chewing on air, his mind fooled into believing that he was actually eating the chocolate truffle that Kurt had given him the suggestion of. "That's amazing. That's…" He chuckled, knowing what he must look like, how silly he must seem devouring something that didn't exist with such rapt enjoyment, but he couldn't help it. His body thought it was there, he was reacting to the stimulus of it being in his mouth, the rich sensation of it melting against his tongue, the mindboggling flavor of it igniting his taste buds. It was earthy and smooth, dark chocolate and wine and something fruity, with a distinct lavender smell. He opened his eyes and saw Kurt staring, his blue eyes glowing, smiling but not in a teasing way - more amused and pleased with himself.

"That's what?" Kurt asked, holding his hands clasped in front of him, hiding his smile behind them.

Sebastian swallowed once before he answered.

"That's…sinful."

Kurt held his breath as Sebastian swallowed again, watching the way his throat moved, his Adam's Apple bobbing slightly, knowing his tongue licked around the inside of his mouth to chase a flavor that wasn't actually there.

"M-my mother used to make them," Kurt stuttered. "She taught me to do it. We used to share them because they were always too rich for me to eat one all by myself."

Sebastian nodded his head against the pillow.

"You're really good at this," Sebastian said, smirking when Kurt blushed.

"Did you want to give it a try?" Kurt offered, blinking the blue glow out of his eyes so he could see Sebastian the way he loved to see him – with his own, fragile, human eyes. The blue flame let Kurt see Sebastian completely, straight down to his soul, and it was glorious, but with his own eyes he could see the beautiful human things about him – his green eyes, soft like spring moss, his lightly sun-kissed skin, the freckles that dotted his face, neck, and chest...

Kurt knew the locations of all of Sebastian's freckles. It couldn't be helped, with the close confines of the hotel rooms they had lived in so far, the spells and runes they painted on each other's bodies, the beds they had shared, even before this escapade began.

Kurt imagined tracing a connection between Sebastian's freckles over his smooth skin with the tip of his tongue.

"No," Sebastian said, laughing and luckily not catching the train of Kurt's dangerous thoughts through that window they shared to each other's minds. "No, I'm too afraid I'll accidentally lobotomize you or something."

"I don't think you can hurt me," Kurt said. "Go ahead. Give it a go."

"No," Sebastian said stubbornly, even when Kurt tried to draw the blue flame out of him. "You do another one. I'm enjoying this too much."

There was a sigh to Sebastian's voice when he made that comment that fueled Kurt's flame, made it glow brighter. Kurt could see by the way the fire reflected in Sebastian's eyes, how it came so close to calling Sebastian's fire forth, that Sebastian knew – he knew that Kurt had responded to him. He knew how Kurt felt.

He felt it, too.

Kurt wanted Sebastian's blue flame to make an appearance. He did everything in his power to provoke it. Sharing that flame became the closest thing to intimate physical contact that they had, just a step up from holding one another. Kurt thought hard about another way to stimulate Sebastian's senses and trigger it.

Kurt blinked his eyes and conjured up the most mind-bending sensation he could imagine, and suddenly Sebastian found himself floating in the air - about a thousand _feet_ in the air - cold wind whipping through his hair, stinging his skin, drying his eyes. He looked down at his feet, at the world stretching out beneath him. He startled, throwing his arms out, expecting to fall.

"Je-Jesus!" he screamed, flailing, arms spinning like a windmill. Kurt grabbed Sebastian's arm and held him, giving him an anchor outside of the hallucination to latch on to.

"It's okay," Kurt said, speaking straight into Sebastian's mind. "It's not real."

Sebastian looked back down at the street below him, at cars clustered together on the blacktop, trying to pass one another in their effort to get traffic moving after the red light, honking their horns, the noise echoing up to reach him.

"It f-feels re-real," Sebastian stuttered, shivering.

Kurt felt Sebastian's heart pounding dangerously fast. He extinguished his flame, and with it, the vision.

Sebastian panted as his eyes refocused on Kurt's face in front of his. He put his shaking hands out and down to feel the mattress, making sure there was something beneath him, something other than air.

"Where was that?" Sebastian asked. "What was that memory from?"

"New York," Kurt said, biting his lip while he watched Sebastian gather his wits and get his bearings, smiling with hidden pride on his face. "Specifically the Empire States Building."

"I've been to the Empire States Building," Sebastian said, swallowing the last of his anxiety and laughing a little, flustered with Kurt's hand still holding his arm. He put a hand over Kurt's, not wanting him to let go. "Not floating outside of it, mind you, but, yeah, I've been there."

"My parents took me there when I was about four, I think," Kurt said. "To tell you the truth, I don't remember all too much about the trip."

"What _do_ you remember?" Sebastian asked, looking into Kurt's eyes as they shifted and stared farther away – farther than their cramped hotel room, far into the past.

"I remember we were standing on one of the upper levels, looking out the windows. I was so excited, being in a big city for the first time, seeing the crowds of people and the cars zooming around from way up high, all small like tiny ants. I guess I got too excited because I phased, walked on through one of the windows like the glass wasn't even there." Kurt's eyes changed without him realizing it, and suddenly Sebastian's mind filled with an image of the Empire State Building - riding up in the elevator, getting off at the observation deck, holding the hands of a man and woman he didn't recognize. The woman looked down at him and smiled, perfect pink lips curling at the corners, reaching all the way to crystal blue eyes – eyes like Kurt's blue eyes when he was calm, when he was happy, when the weight of the world didn't press down on him or the power inside him didn't rage, making his eyes a tumultuous stormy grey before the flame took over. Her pale skin glowed as sunlight flooded the observation deck, creating a halo effect around her, highlighting her chestnut hair, making her appear otherworldly, like Kurt often did.

This woman, with her hand gently holding his and looking at him like he was the most precious creature on earth, had to be Kurt's mother.

Sebastian blinked his eyes and his focus had turned so he was gazing up at the man holding his other hand – a big bear of a man, wearing a button up green flannel shirt and a brand new Yankee baseball cap. The man looked at him and smiled, too, squeezing his hand. Sebastian couldn't hear his voice, but he saw him mouth the words, "Are you okay, kiddo?"

It happened in a sort of slow motion, the words coming across very clear.

"Those are your parents?" Sebastian asked, reaching out a hand to touch even though he knew he couldn't.

"Yeah," Kurt replied sadly. "That's how I like to remember my mom most. She was so happy on that trip. So carefree."

Sebastian took Kurt's hand, and Kurt smiled, but Sebastian still heard the sizzle of a tear not quite make it down his cheek.

"And your dad?"

"He loved my mom." Kurt sniffed, his smile wavering. "And every time he looked at her, it was like he was young and new. So happy. After she died, I never saw him look that happy again."

"But he had you."

"Yeah, we had each other." Another sizzle from another tear. "And he tried. I know he did, it's just...it wasn't the same." Kurt shook his head. "She was the other half of his heart. I think…I think his days were numbered the moment she left us." Kurt chuckled. "I don't think I'm making any sense."

"Yes, you are," Sebastian said, bringing Kurt's hand to his lips and kissing it. "I know exactly what you mean."

Kurt nodded, and the ghosts of his mother and father, which had been bit by bit fading, disappeared from Sebastian's mind. "Well, what about your parents? I've never seen them. Can you show them to me?"

Sebastian laughed hard but it was bitter. "I don't see why you'd want to. They were asses. Both of them."

Kurt knew that wasn't exactly how Sebastian felt. He knew Sebastian loved his mother, and had loved his father once. He'd even looked up to his father, for a dozen wrong reasons, but that didn't erase the fact away. Sebastian wasn't talking like Kurt's disciplined priest, but the hurt little boy who had beaten and abandoned, left to fend for himself by the people who should have moved heaven and earth to provide for him, to protect him…to love him.

Sebastian looked at Kurt with sorrow-filled eyes. "Not today?" he begged. "Not when we're about to get our own happy ever after. I just…I can't…"

"Shhh," Kurt said, putting a hand to Sebastian's cheek. "It's okay. I understand."

Sebastian pulled Kurt in by that hand cupping his cheek until Kurt lay down on the bed next to him. Kurt rested his head on Sebastian's chest and listened to his priest's heart beating. It was soft and steady against his ear, and above all things, had become Kurt's favorite sound in the world. There was so much there Kurt didn't know, that he still didn't understand, regardless of their years together. Maybe growing up, crossing the boundaries from children to teenagers to semi-adults, had put its own slant on things. And now they were getting married…or hand-fasted. But to them, it would mean the same thing. There were things about Sebastian that Kurt wanted to experience. Things he needed to see for himself.

Kurt peeked up at Sebastian, the priest looking content as long as Kurt stayed where he was - by his side.

"Do you mind if I practice picking through your brain a little?" Kurt asked, moving up far enough to look into Sebastian's eyes.

"Go right ahead," Sebastian said, relaxing back onto his pillow and folding an arm beneath his head. "Just don't get lost in the void."

Kurt focused on Sebastian's eyes, on the trust embedded there, in his green eyes that glowed from behind with blue fire, turning them slightly aquamarine. Going through Sebastian's memories was a trickier business than projecting thoughts into his brain. Kurt had to be careful not to alter Sebastian's memories in any way. Kurt could show Sebastian his memories, and theoretically he could remove memories – they hadn't tried that yet. But changing memories – that might ruin Sebastian's sense of reality.

Kurt and Sebastian shared their thoughts fluidly, but Kurt didn't like doing anything that felt like invading Sebastian's privacy. He didn't only need that window between them to read Sebastian's mind. He found he could force his way in, even without Sebastian's consent. But Sebastian felt they should hone that ability. This way they could learn their enemies' plans, find out who they could trust (though Tellemband had warned Sebastian to trust no one, and Sebastian held strong to that).

"Okay," Kurt said, letting Sebastian know he was ready to begin, and Sebastian held Kurt's gaze, which, for now, was the easiest way for Kurt to enter in.

Kurt blinked his eyes and he was sitting on a floor, on a plush, cream-colored carpet, playing with wooden blocks, each one with a different letter of the alphabet painted on them. Chubby hands grabbed the blocks and tried to stack them, but they would fall over onto the floor with a dull but satisfying _thud_. A baby's voice laughed and laughed, grabbing the blocks to stack them again.

"Oh my God!" Kurt gasped, watching the hands that grabbed at the blocks. "This is you! This is little you, Sebastian, playing with blocks!"

"Okay, okay," Sebastian said, putting his hand to Kurt's back, running his fingertips up and down Kurt's spine, "new memory, please."

"I bet you were so cute," Kurt teased. "I wonder if there's a mirror…"

"There isn't," Sebastian said with a subconscious sniffle, "so let's…let's move along."

Kurt felt the tightness in Sebastian's chest as if it was his own.

"Alright," Kurt said. He blinked his eyes and they were back in the temple - in the dorms, specifically - and Kurt was looking at himself. Kurt had never seen himself this way. He'd seen his reflection in the mirror, but himself through Sebastian's eyes…

Was he really that…handsome?

"Come on, Sebastian," his voice called, turning halfway and reaching back for Sebastian's hand. "We're going to be late."

"Alright, alright. I'm coming," Sebastian said, taking Kurt's hand and letting himself be pulled, resisting a little to keep this distance between them. Kurt didn't understand why until Sebastian's eyes flicked down to the seat of Kurt's pants, and suddenly the heat inside Kurt's stomach, which always coiled like a serpent ready to strike when he had this power flowing through him, became hotter and tighter.

"What the…" Kurt muttered, but Sebastian – the real Sebastian lying on the bed beside him – smiled. "You were looking at my ass?"

"You didn't know?" Sebastian teased.

"You were!" Kurt cried, pinching Sebastian on the side underneath his arm.

"Only all the time," Sebastian said, not doing much to defend himself. Kurt gave him another good pinch before settling back over Sebastian's chest. "What can I say? It's a nice ass," Sebastian mumbled, and Kurt pinched him again.

Kurt blinked one more time and he felt himself get hit from behind – hard. Hard enough to make him yelp and his eyes water.

"Ow! What the…?"

"No…Kurt," Sebastian said, putting his hands to Kurt's face. "No. Stop. Get out of my head, sweetheart."

"Say it," a cruel voice hissed. Kurt felt Sebastian swallow, felt him grind his teeth around the word in his mouth.

"Ten," Sebastian, in the memory, said, and Kurt shook his head.

"Kurt, stop," Sebastian commanded, shaking Kurt's shoulders. "Get out…now!"

Another hit, another yelp from Kurt's lips, a tear rolling down his cheek.

"Eleven," memory Sebastian said, his voice strained.

"You're going to have to count louder," the voice returned. "Or we're going to have to start over again."

"Over again?" Kurt said in disgust. Sebastian could hear a symphony of hisses as tears ran down Kurt's cheeks.

"Please," Sebastian pleaded, sitting up and pulling Kurt into his arms, "listen to me. Shut it down. Turn it off. Whatever you have to do."

Another _thwack_, harder, with a harsher sting.

"Well, if you won't give me what I want, we'll start again from the beginning."

Somewhere within the confines of Sebastian's memory, Kurt managed to look around, see a reflective surface off to the left, and find the face of the man watching Sebastian with wicked glee, the boy that Sebastian was years ago bent over a pew with his pants pulled down and his backside bared as the priest raised the paddle – a long, narrow, wooden one – nearly over his head.

"That's…that's Muldoor!" Kurt cried. "He's the priest that led vespers. He…he did this to you?"

Sebastian searched his own mind for a way to shove Kurt out, but he couldn't. It was something he had never practiced. It wasn't something he ever thought he'd want to do.

"Yes, Kurt," Sebastian said truthfully, hoping that Kurt would back out if he just admitted it.

"What for?" Kurt sniffled, bracing for the next hit, locking his jaw tight and nearly screaming when it came. This wasn't punishment. It was torture. This man beat a child, and for what?

"If I tell you, will you stop?" Sebastian asked. Kurt turned his gaze on his priest, eyes glowing blue like the root of a propane flame.

"Tell me," Kurt demanded, making no promises either way.

Sebastian swallowed hard. It was bullshit when it happened. Total bullshit. He knew Kurt would be upset, so he never told him. In retrospect, he probably should have before Kurt unlocked the ability to set their whole hotel on fire.

"It was about five years ago last June, when Alistair stole those cookies."

"Yeah?" Kurt said, unimpressed. "Everyone knew he did it."

"Yeah, well, when they brought him in for formal questioning, he lied and said it was me."

Kurt's glowing eyes narrowed.

"But, other priests saw him," Kurt argued. "And you…you were with me. They could have asked me. I would have told them…"

"But I wasn't supposed to be with you…remember?"

The light in Kurt's eyes dimmed as he thought back, as he recalled one of the many instances when the priests attempted to separate them, frightened by the implication of all the time they spent together. The two of them tried to find ways around them. One was by escaping tutorial, running out past the grounds and sitting by the stream, a place where the priests and acolytes rarely ventured, but that Kurt and Sebastian had considered part of their own private paradise – the stream, the meadow, and the willow trees.

"But, ditching our tutors isn't the same as stealing," Kurt said with new tears starting. "They would have just let it go."

"I didn't know," Sebastian admitted. "I didn't know if you'd get in trouble."

Kurt's jaw dropped open. He couldn't make it register. He knew some of the priests weren't all that fond of Sebastian, but to beat him like this? How could any man who would raise a hand – not to mention a paddle – to a child call himself a man of the cloth?

"How many times did they paddle you?" Kurt asked, his voice affronted, his eyes livid, glowing so bright blue they went nearly white. Sebastian cradled Kurt's head in his hands. Kurt's skin burned so hot that even with the totem in Sebastian's pocket – the heart that gave Sebastian the ability to use Kurt's flame, the one that protected him from it, too – Sebastian's palms burned.

"Only once," Sebastian reassured him, looking deep into Kurt's eyes, trying to grasp his Kurt back from this place of anger he had gone, "and it didn't even last that long, sweetheart. I swear. After that, never again."

"N-never again?" Kurt stuttered, his eyes going a blistering white. Sebastian could see in his mind that Kurt had left his thoughts; that Kurt had strayed from his brain in search of something.

In search of a target.

If Sebastian couldn't bring Kurt back, Kurt was going to kill Muldoor, maybe even Alistair.

"I promise," Sebastian said, pressing their foreheads together. "Tellemband wouldn't let them. Kurt…come back…come back to me…"

Kurt's glowing blue eyes dimmed, his face relaxed, but his smile remained absent.

"Why…why didn't you tell me?" Kurt asked, hurt by Sebastian's omission.

"I didn't want you to get upset," Sebastian said, catching a tear on Kurt's cheek that had escaped being dissolved by his fire.

"Maybe...maybe I could have done something."

"You did," Sebastian said, brushing a lock of hair from Kurt's eyes. "You were with me that night, when it was over. We sat on your bed, and you read to me. _Just So Stories_. Do you remember? You read to me until I fell asleep."

Kurt vaguely remembered that night. Sebastian had been called away after dinner, and when he returned over an hour later, he was upset. He looked defeated – physically and emotionally rubbed raw. Sebastian had climbed onto Kurt's bed and winced, hiding it behind a yawn, but Kurt knew him too well. Sebastian stretched out on his side, which wasn't usually his way, and Kurt waited for an explanation, but he didn't get one. Sebastian made the request that Kurt read to him, and that was that. They snuggled together and Kurt read until Sebastian fell asleep. Kurt didn't ask at the time. He didn't want to push. Sebastian often had problems with other priests in the order, and he always told Kurt about them eventually.

The fact that this one time passed without Kurt's notice filled him with an incredible sense of guilt.

"But I…I didn't know."

"It didn't matter then," Sebastian said, running a thumb over Kurt's cheek, clearing away another tear, "and it doesn't matter now."

It did matter. It mattered to Kurt. It mattered because Sebastian fought so hard to keep Kurt safe, and the one time Kurt could have protected him, he didn't. Kurt could argue that he didn't know, but how couldn't he have? The gossip chain within the order was pervasive, even if gossip was considered a sin. How did they keep this from him?

But more importantly, how could he make it up to Sebastian? Maybe Sebastian felt that Kurt didn't need to, that it wasn't his responsibility to fix, but that didn't mean Kurt didn't want to try.

"Can I…remove it?" Kurt asked. The words stuck inside his mouth. He hadn't done that yet, removed a memory, and it could be dangerous, but he couldn't think of anything else within his power to do, and he had to do something.

Sebastian smiled and nodded with no hesitation. "Why not?" he asked, having all the faith in the world in Kurt's abilities. "One less memory of a beating, the better."

Sebastian had made the comment to make Kurt feel better. Instead, it made him feel worse. Sebastian had a different life before they met, a life of privilege and yet, even though it spanned only eight short years, it had been marked with repeated abuse.

"Well, if I do this right, maybe we can work on erasing some of the others, hmm?" Kurt put a hand to Sebastian's shoulder and pushed him back down on the bed.

"That sounds great, actually." Sebastian's eyes flickered, this one gesture on Kurt's part – this hand to his shoulder, maneuvering him towards the pillows – bringing Sebastian's fire to the surface.

"Good," Kurt said, Sebastian's fire igniting beneath his fingertips. His skin vibrated with it. It sang to him, tried to persuade him to let both their fires join and become one. This new temptation by this power was hard to resist, since it filled Kurt's senses with everything about Sebastian that he craved – the scent of him in Kurt's nostrils, the taste of him on Kurt's tongue, Sebastian's warmth filling him, every inch. "Now just lie still…relax…and concentrate."

"Hmm-hmm," Sebastian said, and that's all he said, but Kurt would have had to have been blind not to notice the way Sebastian's body reacted to those words.

Kurt ignored it and zeroed in on Sebastian's eyes – eyes that reflected his own flame and made it their own, eyes that revealed the same temptation bubbling in Sebastian's blood. Kurt felt himself drawn in to Sebastian's mind, the path to it paved inside his brain. The memory Kurt had seen of Sebastian being spanked lingered in the forefront of Sebastian's mind, ready to be forgotten, and Kurt found it again easily. He identified its beginning and end. He relived it from a third-person perspective, keeping himself separate from it, leaving emotion out of it as much as possible. Sebastian might have a blanket faith in Kurt's ability to wield this power, but Kurt wasn't as sure, and he needed this detachment to get it right.

"Okay," Kurt sighed. He breathed in through his nose slowly, and out through his mouth, every breath burning its way through Sebastian's memory, carefully turning an hour of pain into nothing but cinders. Each swipe of the paddle against Sebastian's skin, every sadistic jeer of the priest who hit him, curled at the edges like a photograph in a fireplace and disintegrated into ashes. Kurt went back over the memory several times to make certain it was gone – everything from the moment Sebastian arrived at the priest's door to him being tossed roughly out again. He considered going back through and taking out everything involved with that memory, too, like Alistair stealing those cookies to begin with, but then he would have to remove other bits and pieces that led up to that as well. Where would Kurt be able to stop? He'd have to remove the memory of the two of them running away to the stream, or afterward, lying in bed together. He didn't want to add something new to compensate, so Sebastian was now left with this hole in his memory.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"I'm done," Kurt announced, quickly blinking out the flame within him before he could do any more damage. "How do you feel?"

Sebastian sat up slowly with confusion in his eyes. His brows drew together as he tried to think, tried to recall the memory that was there only a minute ago.

"Strange," he answered, eyes flicking back and forth as he swept through his own mind. "I mean, logically, I know it happened. And I know the memory should be there. I saw it a second ago, but…"

"But…" Kurt felt uneasy with this new skill – being able to remove someone's memory, that's a powerful thing, a powerful weapon, and his power could be unpredictable at times. Of everything he'd done so far, this might be the scariest.

"It's not there. I can't even picture it, like if I tried to make it up in my mind. The pain, the anxiety, the embarrassment, the anger…it's gone." Sebastian sounded as in awe as Kurt felt disturbed. He should be happy that he could do this for his friend, but it brought with it many hypotheticals.

If Kurt had to, to keep Sebastian safe, could he remove Sebastian's memories of him? Kurt thought about their life together, of the things they did every day that included one another and realized that if Kurt erased himself from Sebastian's memories, most of Sebastian's mind would be distorted.

It couldn't be done.

Kurt looked at Sebastian, saw the relief on his face, and fell into Sebastian's beckoning arms.

"Thank you," the priest said, holding Kurt tight.

"I…you're welcome." Kurt had something else he wanted to say, but he couldn't. He couldn't talk about fear and self-doubt while Sebastian massaged up and down the length of his spine with his fingers.

"Do you want to do some more picking?" Sebastian asked, hiccupping a laugh. "I got bitten by a Maltese when I was four. Nearly took my pinkie finger off. Maybe you can get rid of that for me, too."

Kurt giggled, the image that leapt into his head of an adult Sebastian – muscular and strong, a true warrior of God – with a fluffy white dog hanging from his pinkie finger, gnawing viciously with an adorable growl.

"Let me see what I can do," Kurt said, and this time, he didn't look into Sebastian's eyes. He didn't need to. That connection between them was always there, always open, and he didn't want Sebastian to stop holding him. Hundreds of different images zipped by, and Kurt caught only glimpses of them – Sebastian playing ball in the park with a small group of kids, Sebastian eating dinner and hiding his peas in his mashed potatoes, Sebastian seeing the temple for the first time from the passenger seat of the same truck they ran away in. Then there passed a flurry of times Kurt and Sebastian spent together – doing their homework at the same desk, washing dishes (doing the dishes was Sebastian's task after lunch on Mondays and Wednesdays, but Kurt always helped him), Kurt helping Sebastian replace a button on one of his robes (not because Sebastian didn't know how, but because Kurt said he didn't do it right). Kurt saw himself through Sebastian's eyes on that night of the ritual, when Sebastian whispered in his ear that it would always be him, no matter what, no matter who he was with. He saw himself tear from Sebastian's arms, his face twisted with sobs as he ran away into the night.

Then he stood inside the temple, looking down upon a man – a strikingly handsome man. A _naked_ man. Kurt saw his face, clear as day - his come-hither smile, his alluring honey-hazel eyes, full of desire, hands reaching out to him. All of a sudden, the face deformed, and the image before him began to melt and slide, like wax down the side of a candle.

Kurt's head snapped up, looking into Sebastian's face, and Sebastian stared back at him with sympathy in his eyes.

"Why did you do that?" Kurt asked, his voice pitchy, his tone accusatory – accusing Sebastian of something he knew in his heart to be untrue.

"I think you know why," Sebastian said, his own voice firm.

Kurt's brow furrowed.

"Why are you protecting him?"

"I'm not protecting him, darling," Sebastian said quietly, raising a hand to brush the backs of his fingers down Kurt's face. "I'm protecting you."

Kurt huffed, his stomach churning, the power inside him turning him sour. He had it under control most of the time, but it didn't belong to him entirely. It was in his blood, but put there by a higher power, and it came from a place of wrath as well as love.

"Why do _I_ need protecting?"

"Are you kidding?" Sebastian chuckled, grabbing Kurt by the upper arms when he tried to pull away. Sebastian sensed the fury within Kurt, but it was still Kurt, so Sebastian didn't fear it. If there was one being in heaven or on earth to judge Sebastian, he would prefer it be Kurt. "With the amount of power flowing through you, you could blink your eyes and reduce him to dust, wherever the hell he is."

Kurt gritted his teeth at Sebastian's good-natured but empty laughter.

"And why shouldn't I?" Kurt snarled like an animal - something he never did and never had done as far as Sebastian could remember. It bothered him, but he kept his cool.

"Because that's not you," Sebastian said. "Because you know that killing for vengeance is wrong, and regardless of what's going to happen when that stupid war breaks out, no matter who you ki-" Sebastian paused, locking his jaw around the word, banishing the idea in his head, crushing it between his teeth. Not his Kurt. "You are not a remorseless killer."

Kurt tilted his head, examining the sadness in Sebastian's expression with these eyes of fire that had the ability to pick apart every thought in Sebastian's head, every feeling he'd ever had. But he didn't. He'd take Sebastian at his word. If Sebastian didn't care, then Kurt wouldn't care, either – except he did. Except he always would.

"Let me remove it then," Kurt said with a shrug.

Sebastian's eyes darted away. "I…I'd rather you didn't," he said. Kurt's throat tightened. He didn't expect that as an answer. He didn't understand.

"Why not?"

"I…I have my reasons."

Kurt's body went stiff in Sebastian's grasp, defiant of his priest's response, but Sebastian didn't let go, and Kurt crossed his arms in protest of Sebastian's reluctance.

"Then share it with me," he said, he _commanded_, and as a priest, Sebastian could not defy the Scion's request. Sebastian sighed. Even if it hadn't been a command, Sebastian wouldn't deny Kurt anything.

"I will," Sebastian promised, loosening Kurt's hand from his crossed arms. "But not now." Sebastian lifted Kurt's hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles, trying to soothe the flame. "After our hand-fasting, after you're officially and unequivocally mine, then I'll show it to you. I promise."

Kurt rolled his eyes and turned his head, but he let Sebastian hold him.

Deep inside the Scion's chest, a spot around his heart burned as if it meant to melt through his skin, and Kurt seethed.

He did not like Sebastian's answer. He didn't want to wait.


	12. Owner of My Heart - Part 3: Acceptance

**A/N:** _This chapter might repeat some themes I've written about before in this verse, but it's meant to emphasize something very specific, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. After they get through this, once they're secure in who they are alone and apart, then the real danger begins. Warning - chapter includes angst and a sexual fantasy._

Kurt and Sebastian ate lunch in silence, which wasn't that unusual for them. They ate most of their meals in silence, a habit engrained from life at the temple, where meal times were spent in quiet reflection and gratefulness of the meal, for those who grew the food, those who prepared it, and the blessings that brought them both. But instead of reflecting, the boys read much of that time – Kurt glued to decades-old romance novels that they bought for a quarter down at the Salvation Army and then donated to the library when he was through, and Sebastian studied spells and runes, setting more and more of them to memory, often times teaching Kurt the ones that he felt the Scion should know, for healing or self-protection. Sebastian was re-reading a book on druidic chants while he ate his chicken sandwich, but Kurt sat and glared over the edge of his paperback at his spinach salad, completely unaware of the thin spires of smoke rising from the leaves as he wilted them with the heat of his gaze.

Sebastian stopped chewing and sniffed.

"Is something burning?" he asked offhand without raising his eyes from his book.

"Uh…hmm?" Kurt's eyes snapped shut for a second while he extinguished the flame, quickly taking un-scorched leaves of spinach and piling them atop the decimated ones to hide the evidence. It smelled as unappetizing as it looked, but Kurt didn't care. He had no appetite.

The thought of _him_ had taken it away.

Ever since Kurt had seen the man's face – the man from the temple that Sebastian had been with - it lodged itself into his memory and refused to be removed. He would ask Sebastian to do it for him, but Sebastian seemed reticent to practice that particular skill. Besides, Kurt felt too embarrassed to admit to keeping it. Sebastian would surely wonder why he held on to it, and the truth was he hadn't consciously done it.

The power within him did.

There were complicated emotions surrounding that image, but one emotion in particular, bred from Kurt's love for Sebastian, proved so powerful that it could feed his flame for eternity.

The fear that this man, who had something of Sebastian that Kurt would never have, might pop up into their lives someday, and Sebastian would choose him over Kurt. It was a ridiculous notion, but if there wasn't even a chance of that happening, why wouldn't Sebastian let Kurt take the memory of him away? Kurt could speculate all he wanted, but as long as that fact remained, the jealousy grew, fat and unyielding, feeding off Kurt's self-doubt.

For days, it festered, curdling in Kurt's stomach like sour milk, making everything beautiful around him seem ugly.

Sebastian seemed unaware of Kurt's plight, dutifully planning out every detail of their hand-fasting ceremony. He had chosen to have it at dusk, on the beach, during the oncoming full moon, which would lend energy to Kurt's power, and Sebastian hoped, seal their bond. According to those practitioners of witchcraft who cherished the moon, it should turn out to be so. Sebastian talked unendingly about it, but somewhere along the way, Kurt had stopped listening. His mind filled with images of the man on the temple rug, making love to his Sebastian (though Sebastian would have never called it that), sighing in pleasure as Sebastian filled his body with his heat, and took him over and over again.

"Are you done with your salad?"

The question brought Kurt back to reality, though he didn't recognize that he'd drifted away from it.

"Uh…yeah," Kurt said, pushing his plate away. "Yeah, I think I am."

"But, you barely ate anything," Sebastian said, peeking over at Kurt's plate, then at him.

"I…I know," Kurt said, grabbing his napkin and wiping his mouth. "I didn't have much of an appetite, I guess. You know, because I'm so excited."

Sebastian smiled bright and Kurt felt like a slug. Though, to be fair to himself, he hadn't exactly lied. He _was_ excited about their upcoming hand-fasting…just not so much at the moment. Not with the doubts overwhelming him, taking him over, voices whispering in his head about how Sebastian didn't want him, he wanted the beautiful tanned man with eyes that melted into pools of gold – the one who could give Sebastian things that Kurt couldn't.

"Well, that's okay," Sebastian said, putting down his book and standing to clear away their plates. "We should get a move on if we're going to make it to the thrift shops before they close. We only have about thirty hours until the full moon, and you know what that means." Sebastian winked and Kurt tried to smile. He really did. But what he ended up doing came out more like a constipated scowl, and Sebastian's smile wavered.

"Is there…are you feeling alright?" Sebastian asked. "You've been a little…out of sorts lately."

_Out of sorts?_ Kurt thought with an internal huff. _If that's what he wants to call it. _He felt Sebastian's thoughts sweep through his mind, searching Kurt out, and Kurt found himself trying to scrounge up an image to put there that would hurt Sebastian, something that would get him back for not wanting the memory of that man removed. When Kurt privately delighted in the idea of conjuring up an image of himself in Alistair's arms, just to see the look that would put on Sebastian's face, Kurt realized that this had gone too far. What was he doing? Why was he acting this way? Maybe it had nothing to do with that man in the temple at all. Maybe it was the same stress they were always plagued with, the fear of being found, coupled by being locked up in their room for the past three days (it had started to storm out of nowhere) that was doing this to him. He would never intentionally try to hurt Sebastian. The concept was unthinkable. Kurt shook his head to loosen his power's grip on his conscience.

"No, I'm…I'm good," Kurt said, inhaling to calm his mood. "I think I have a case of cabin fever. That's all."

"Good!" Sebastian said, putting the plates down on the counter. "Then these can wait. Come on!"

Sebastian threw on an old pair of military boots without bothering to tie them, rushing to help Kurt tie his shoes when he didn't move fast enough. Sebastian was so excited, and Kurt struggled to find a way to be excited, too, but he couldn't. His doubts constructed a barrier, stopping him. It sucked up every happy thought and turned it into something foul. Sebastian touching him while he tied Kurt's laces, pausing before he moved on to the next shoe to kiss Kurt's denim-clad knee, a hand caressing his calf, made Kurt wonder how the man on the rug touched Sebastian, and how did Sebastian touch him back. Kurt knew very little of the specifics of that ceremony – he _refused_ to be informed - except that it was only about sex – nothing else. But sex included touching, didn't it? And touching, aside from the act of fornicating, could be intimate, special. Did Sebastian touch that man the way he was touching Kurt now? Was Sebastian gentle about it? Did Sebastian run his hands down the man's back the way he did to Kurt when they slept side by side, soothing Kurt until he drifted off to sleep? Sebastian didn't kiss the man on the lips, but did that mean he kissed him other places? The more questions piled up, the more Kurt decided he didn't _want_ to see.

He _needed_ to see.

He needed to know what he was up against. He needed to know what Sebastian thought about at night. He needed to know what they did during that ceremony, how it felt.

What Kurt couldn't have.

Kurt was on his feet and being dragged out of the hotel room without him consciously aware of it, his body moving to follow his priest while his mind stayed stuck in the quagmire of his horrible thoughts, his urge to lash out and do something unforgivable kept at bay only by Sebastian's hand holding his.

With their room door locked behind them, Kurt discovered that Sebastian had been talking to him the whole time.

"…and I thought we might not find what we want the first time around," Kurt heard as his mind returned to the present, "but there's literally seventeen thrift stores within a twenty mile radius of this hotel."

"Wow," Kurt said, forcing a smile, "that's amazing. Who would have ever thought?"

"I know? Right?" Sebastian said, opening the passenger side door for Kurt. Sebastian helped Kurt on with his seatbelt, which often jammed three times before pulling smoothly and allowing itself to get clipped into place, then practically skipped over to the driver's side door. "So I say we start at the farthest spot and work our way back," Sebastian suggested, buckling himself in. "What do you say?"

But Kurt didn't answer. He glared out the window at a man passing by, a man with tan skin and curly, dark hair, walking in front of their truck on the way to his room. Kurt's eyes tracked him, his eyes starting to glow when Sebastian put his hand on Kurt's knee.

"Kurt?" he said, shaking gently. "Kurt, are you okay?"

"Yeah," Kurt said, answering curtly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. You seem…distracted." Sebastian reluctantly took his hand off Kurt's knee and started the engine. He pulled the truck out and started for the exit to the hotel parking lot, the air in the cab heavy with unspoken words and questions. "Are you having second thoughts? Do you not want to do this?"

Kurt crossed his arms and replied with a short, sarcastic chuckle. "Of the both of us, why would _I_ be the one with second thoughts?" he asked. "This is what I wanted, remember?"

"I don't know," Sebastian said, inadvertently catching a bit of Kurt's snide attitude, even though, in truth, he was getting nervous at his friend's drastic change in demeanor. Sebastian knew that this power Kurt carried had a vice grip over him, made him do and feel things Kurt wouldn't normally. Sebastian's greatest fear was that it would take Kurt completely, that one day he would wake up and not recognize the person sleeping next to him. "That's why I'm asking." Sebastian pulled out of the parking lot and on to the main road, hands gripping the steering wheel hard, going over things he had read about the Scion in his head and trying to decipher any meaning in the ways Kurt had started to change, but nothing Kurt did seemed to follow the teachings in the books.

It's a good thing that Sebastian was given charge of this mission and not Alistair. If Kurt had managed to unlock his power without Sebastian's help, he would probably have melted the other acolyte by now.

Sebastian waited for Kurt to retort, but Kurt stared out the window, his spine tree-trunk solid, his eyes reflected in the mirror starting to flare blue.

"Why are you being so difficult all of a sudden?" Sebastian asked, the question coming from a place of the utmost concern but sounding snarky in its delivery.

Kurt's eyes caught Sebastian's in the reflection, but he didn't turn around.

"If I'm so _damned difficult_, why don't you find someone who's _easy_?" An image of _that_ _man_ flashed through his mind. It filled Sebastian's head for a split-second – a second that took his attention away from the road, causing him to forget that he was driving, and he slammed on the brakes at the red light, throwing the two of them into the dash.

"Kurt?" Sebastian looked over at the Scion sulking in the passenger seat. "What…why would you say that?"

"I…" Kurt took a deep breath in. He wanted to explain, but he couldn't. That barrier blocking him from happiness held him back from making Sebastian understand. This was all so ludicrous, but he couldn't help himself. He had these feelings that he took barely any ownership of, but they obsessed him. He felt like a stranger in his own skin. He would normally curb these emotions, but it was almost like he was a puppet, and someone else was speaking for him, someone stronger than him.

He didn't want to lose control – not again.

"I've loved you forever, Kurt. Do you honestly think I would want someone else?" Sebastian asked, ice creeping through his veins at the thought of losing Kurt. He had come so close before; he didn't want to take that chance again.

"I don't…I don't know. I don't know anything anymore!" Kurt cried. "I just…" He leapt out of the truck before Sebastian had time to stop him and raced back for the hotel.

"Kurt!" Sebastian called out the window. "Kurt! Come back!" Sebastian wanted to turn the truck immediately around and race after him, but he had to wait for the light to change. They still had to avoid attracting attention to themselves, and a car accident would definitely not help. But as soon as the light turned green, he made an illegal U-turn. Luckily, only one other vehicle was around to witness it, and the driver of that car was too busy checking his email on his phone to notice. Kurt was already racing up the staircase to their room when Sebastian threw the truck into park and killed the engine. He barely remembered to lock the vehicle before chasing after him, catching him as he opened their hotel room door. "Kurt, you know _me_!" Sebastian followed him inside and shut the door, locking the dead bolts and setting the broom against the jamb. "I'm not carrying a torch for anybody. In fact…" Sebastian chuckled humorlessly, "I think you think about that guy more than I do."

"Really?" Kurt said, turning on Sebastian with power burning in his blue eyes. "And how often do you think of him?"

"Never," Sebastian said, holding firm even when the fire in Kurt's eyes started to envelope his face, his head, then his entire body. "Not once since that day. Not even for a minute after."

"I find that hard to believe," Kurt barked, not knowing where this anger, this jealousy came from, why it was so difficult to control. In his heart, he believed Sebastian. It was his head that had trouble, holding fast to the image that plagued him, the one he stole from Sebastian's mind. It tormented him to think about it, and why…why didn't Sebastian want Kurt to take it away?

Sebastian took the heart totem from his pocket, the only thing that could defend him against Kurt's blue flame if, for some reason, Kurt decided to use it against him, and put it on the table beside him. He walked away a few paces, far enough that there would be no way for him to get it in time if he needed it. He was proving a point. He trusted Kurt. He loved Kurt. He was faithful – mind, body, and soul – to Kurt. He looked deep into Kurt's glowing eyes.

"Not once," he said again. "Not once since that day. I swear on everything I am." Sebastian reached out and took Kurt's hand in his, not even wincing when the fire burned his flesh. "I love you, Kurt. I always have. I want to be with _you_. Only you."

Sebastian came closer, wrapping his arms around Kurt, prepared to burn in the shelter of Kurt's fire if that's what Kurt wanted, but Kurt willed the flame away, letting it wash over Sebastian's body and heal his skin.

"I don't know…" Kurt shook his head, trying to get his thoughts to make sense. "I don't know why I'm doing this." Kurt looked at his hands, at his empty palms, as if something there held the answer for him. "I thought I had this handled. I thought I had it under control."

"I think I know what's going on," Sebastian said, curling Kurt's fingers over his palms, closing them over empty air. "This fire within you, this power – it's fueled by raw emotion, the emotions you've been taught so long to suppress. The root of those being your love for me, remember?" Sebastian smiled shyly at the mention of this trigger. The day Kurt had told him about it, even in the midst of Kurt's desolation and heart ache, Sebastian had wanted to leap for joy.

"I remember," Kurt answered, keeping his voice soft lest the rage inside him reignite.

"We got through it then," Sebastian said, squeezing Kurt's closed fists, "and we'll get through it now." Sebastian released Kurt's hands. He walked back to the table where he left his totem and retrieved the metal heart. He'd need it for the next stage of the plan he was concocting. "I think I know how to fix this – how to make the jealousy go away."

"H-how?" Kurt asked, almost frightened at the thought of what Sebastian had planned, but not because he ever thought Sebastian would hurt him. Not intentionally. But what did that matter when Kurt did an expert job hurting both of them?

"I promised I would share this with you, but I wasn't going to until after we were hand-fasted because it seemed…well, it seemed like having sex before marriage, and I didn't want that." Sebastian pulled Kurt down to the bed and held his hands. His eyes glowed blue as he borrowed Kurt's power and tapped into the memory. It took quite a bit of concentration since he had shoved it far deep into his subconscious. He wasn't 100% sure he could dig it out again.

Sebastian blinked his eyes, blinked the fire into them, and suddenly Kurt could see the man he'd been hating, hazel eyes gazing hopefully up at Sebastian, bronze skin glistening in the dim light, arms raised and beckoning. Kurt saw him – how handsome he was, how in his eyes he wanted Sebastian. Kurt could even see the reflection of his priest's naked body in the man's lust-blown pupils, and his breath hitched in his throat. No, he forgot how to breathe entirely, which was fine since his heart had started to die.

"I…I changed my mind," Kurt stammered, pain tearing his ribcage to pieces, a single tear racing down his cheek. "I…I was wrong, alright? I can't do this."

Kurt tried to squirm out of Sebastian's grasp, not ready to see the man he had hoped to marry being intimate with someone else, especially when he himself might never have the pleasure. Sebastian didn't answer, concentrating harder, the image becoming viciously clearer in Kurt's mind.

"No, Sebastian," Kurt sniffled, his voice broken to match his heart. "Please, no."

"Kurt…" Sebastian held Kurt's hands tighter as Kurt tried to move away. "Just stay. Trust me?"

"Always," Kurt whispered as his voice finally failed him, captured in the thicket of sobs in his throat, weaving their thorny spines up and down his esophagus, squeezing the breath out of him.

The image Sebastian planted in his head was so intact, so vivid, Kurt could smell the cold air around him, feel the woven rug the man was sitting on beneath his bare feet, the heavy robe Sebastian had had to wear bowing his shoulders. Kurt gasped, holding back the screams building up in his chest, but he sat still, his body crumbling from the inside out. He saw the man for only a second more and then the image faded, the dimly lit arena melting into a scene of pure white light, like staring into the sun, and when the light softened, the scene around him changed, became the courtyard outside the temple, vast acres of grass and trees, and one special tree, its branches hanging straight to the ground, creating an enclosed hideaway.

"Sebastian?" Kurt heard his own voice laughing, coming from underneath the branches of the tree.

"You know," Sebastian said in his mind, "if you're trying to hide, then this is a lousy hiding place." Kurt saw Sebastian's hand reach out to part the thick overhanging veil of willow leaves. "This is kind of our hiding place? I knew you'd be here." When the leaves parted, Kurt saw himself, wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt, reaching out to take Sebastian's outstretched hand.

"I _am_ hiding, but not from you," his voice replied.

"What…what are you…" Kurt searched for any evidence that Sebastian had changed the memory, just this second, for Kurt's benefit, but there was none. _This_ was the authentic memory. As far as Sebastian's mind was concerned, that night at the temple, when his virginity was forced from him, this was exactly what happened.

"Keep watching," Sebastian said, and he felt his eyes burn with the power Kurt was drawing from them.

Kurt saw himself stretched out on a blanket. He even knew which one. He made it one winter, when the order was trapped within the dorms as inclement weather raged outside the temple. To keep the acolytes from getting restless, they were set a number of menial tasks. Kurt and Sebastian (well, Sebastian) was ordered to clean out the cellar. In a dusty trunk, Kurt discovered a stack of old fabric that was meant for donation, but Kurt asked for it, and so it was given to him. He designed and made random clothes with most of it – nothing he would wear but to keep his hands busy. He did make Sebastian a button-down shirt that Sebastian was fond of, and wore to death. Even when the sleeves became too short on him, he rolled them up since the body of the shirt still fit fine. But Kurt made this picnic blanket out of a length of red and white flannel. It was actually reversible. On the opposite side was a waterproof gingham that Tellemband let him have. Kurt spent days sewing it by hand and embroidering flowers on the edges. It broke Sebastian's heart that they left it behind at the temple. So many wonderful memories were wrapped up in that blanket, memories of picnics, movie marathons, of nights stolen out on the temple roof, lying under the stars, contemplating their place in the universe.

"So, who are we hiding from?" Sebastian asked, letting Kurt pull him down onto the blanket, except this time Sebastian ended up kneeling between Kurt's legs and Kurt was lying on his back, gazing up at his priest with love, resolve, and acceptance in his eyes.

Acceptance of the future, acceptance of their combined fates if he did what he'd planned on doing, what he lured Sebastian out here for.

"The world," Kurt said, pulling Sebastian further, bringing the priest's body onto his, and without needing to ask, Sebastian kissed him. Sebastian spread Kurt out beneath him, holding his hands to the blanket while he kissed him, and in the dark of the hotel room, where Sebastian and Kurt sat on their bed, eyes glowing as Kurt watched this memory play in his head, Kurt raised a hand and pressed gentle fingers to his lips.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sebastian asked, his voice in this fantasy absolute and clear. "You know what this could mean, don't you?" And in the fantasy, Kurt nodded, the look in his eyes never more sure of anything else in his life.

"I don't care," Kurt said, lifting up on his elbows to kiss Sebastian again and again. "I don't care what happens to everyone else. I just want you. I want _us_. I've wanted this for so long."

"I have," Kurt admitted through trembling lips, the light in the room glowing brighter as Kurt said it. "I have wanted you…for so long."

Sebastian released Kurt's hand and curled his fingers into the flesh of his knees as he fought not to cross the bed and show Kurt in real life what happened next in his fantasy. But he didn't. He sat obediently and waited. He sat and watched his Scion lose himself to the dream he'd created – the one they couldn't share.

In the solitude of the willow tree, Sebastian cradled Kurt's head in his hands and kissed him, and Kurt raised his hands to tug the hem of Sebastian's shirt out from where he had tucked it in to his jeans. Sebastian moaned at the feeling of Kurt undressing him and followed Kurt's lead, reaching for Kurt's t-shirt, pulling it out of his jeans and over his head. Sebastian wasn't going to stop him, wasn't about to lecture him about his responsibility to the world when he wanted this so much, when he had always felt that the world could manage on its own without making Kurt sacrifice his entire life to it.

Sitting on the bed across from Kurt, Sebastian watched as Kurt reached out, mimicked the movement of undressing him, pulling up his shirt, then toying with the button fly to his jeans. Then Kurt's fingers stopped in mid-air as, in the dream, Sebastian had Kurt completely undressed and stared at him, looked at him every inch from head to toe with jaw dropped and eyes that had never seen true beauty before that moment. He sat, captivated, until Kurt's nervous giggle brought him back. Sebastian continued before Kurt could think twice, turning him gently on to his stomach, kissing his shoulders and down his back, then licking his way up Kurt's spine. He paused at Kurt's ear and whispered, "Do you trust me?" and in the dream and in real life, Kurt answered, "Yes."

With a hand pushing on Kurt's shoulder blades, Sebastian laid Kurt out on the picnic blanket. He traveled down Kurt's body, with kisses, with touches, with hums against his skin. With trembling hands, he parted Kurt's cheeks, exposing his entrance, and with the very tip of his tongue, circled the tight ring of muscle.

Kurt drew a ragged breath, and on the bed where he sat, he cried out.

"I…" he stuttered, shifting his legs beneath him to kneel, then throwing his head back. "I…_ngh_!"

"Do you…do you feel that?" Sebastian asked in surprise, watching Kurt writhe as if this experience, for him, were real. Sebastian realized then that Kurt was no longer seeing this fantasy from _his_ point of view. He had somehow switched places and become himself in Sebastian's dream.

"Yes," Kurt gasped. "I…yes…" His voice trailed away and something in Sebastian's chest began to build. _Jealousy_. Similar to the jealousy that had been torturing Kurt with thoughts of Sebastian having sex with a nameless stranger. This wasn't fair. Kurt shouldn't be having this experience with a fantasy. It should be with _Sebastian_, in his arms, right here, right now. He was there, so close, close enough that he could touch Kurt, and as the blue flame filled him more, he began to feel the resentment that Kurt must have felt.

And it hurt, more than he would ever be able to describe.

The fantasy of Sebastian kissed Kurt slowly, running his tongue over the sensitive skin of his hole, then pushing in, opening him up. Kurt felt everything, every light suck of his lips, every swipe of his tongue, the filtered sunlight on his skin, warming him in spots while others stayed cool, covered by the shade. He felt so cared for and open and free. He felt so…alive.

"Sebastian," Kurt heard his own voice moaning, "Sebastian…please…I need you…"

"Yes," Kurt repeated, shifting again to get closer to the phantom lips kissing his skin. Sebastian watched, and as much as he enjoyed Kurt deriving pleasure from this fantasy, he began to get angry at it, too, and only then did he begin to understand. This power that Kurt had, it corrupted him in small ways. It took things and twisted them. This was a moment for them – a moment that they were sharing - but Sebastian felt cheated.

In Sebastian's fantasy, he entered Kurt's body. It was slick and smooth, with no hesitation, no painful stretching, nothing but pure pleasure.

Kurt whimpered, the tiny mewls from earlier that struck straight at Sebastian's heart when Kurt had begged him to stop turning into breathy moans. Kurt's eyes were open, staring at Sebastian, straight into his glowing eyes, but the image they saw was something much different. Sebastian could see it, too, but he couldn't participate. He couldn't feel, but from the looks of it, Kurt could – every kiss, every touch. Sebastian wasn't quite sure how. How could he transfer the sensations of having sex with - Sebastian didn't even want to chance thinking about _him_ – when Sebastian hadn't been on the receiving end? Kurt should be experiencing what Sebastian felt, but he wasn't. Which meant Sebastian was supplying the image, but the _feel_…that was all Kurt.

Kurt didn't move, didn't blink, didn't speak, with the fantasy of Sebastian filling him inside. He didn't want to do anything that might disturb the sensations warping through his body. He felt Sebastian all over him – on his back, between his legs, hands clasping his hands, his breath on his neck, his body trembling as he joined with Kurt's body and they became one.

"I love you, Kurt," Sebastian whispered in Kurt's ear in the dream, but Kurt could hear it in the room around him.

"I…I love you, Sebastian," Kurt murmured, between panting breaths and the ghosts of kisses to his mouth. A part of him knew this wasn't real. A part of him knew that, like Sebastian with the chocolate truffle, it was all an illusion.

But like Sebastian said, it's all they had, so he abandoned himself to it, let it sweep him away, let it possess him, and then he'd sort out the consequences later, whatever they were.

Kurt's hands crept into his hair and the blue light in the room became brighter. His hips snapped and his back arched, his lips parted and he shuddered.

"Sebastian," Kurt sighed, until the word became a moan and that moan became silence, with Kurt's mouth working around it. Sebastian saw Kurt's body tighten, and his own body tightened, too, but not for the same reason. But he had to finish this. He had to let Kurt see it to the end.

He owed him that, even though his own body throbbed with the agony of being unfulfilled.

He saw Kurt bend in half, arms wrapped around his waist, shaking, and the blue glow washed completely from him, leaving him in an instant.

"Oh, shit!" Sebastian exclaimed at the dawning comprehension of what had happened. He looked at a breathless, panting, euphoric Kurt and broke him too quickly from the dream. "Kurt! Your power! The flame! It went out!"

Kurt's eyes snapped open, understanding Sebastian's panic. Where did the lines blur between sharing a fantasy with someone and the actual act of making love? Kurt turned frantically to the sink and concentrated, reaching out blindly for the first thing he could touch with his mind. A geyser of water shot out from the sink, a violent blue, and spiraled into a perfect sphere. Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing back onto the mattress with a groan, pulling Kurt along with him. Lying atop Sebastian's body, Kurt had just enough foresight to let the sphere of water down gently into the sink.

"I guess…I guess that didn't count," Kurt said, his breath not slowing yet.

"I guess not," Sebastian said. He kissed Kurt on the forehead and held him, trying to capture the last of Kurt's shudders, trapping them in his collection of memories. "But do you see? That's why I couldn't let you take it, Kurt," Sebastian said through tears he wasn't ashamed to show. "It's the only memory I have of…" Sebastian swallowed, looking down at Kurt's upturned face and the contented smile that had settled there. "It's the only memory I have of making love to you. And it's not even real."

"I'm sorry," Kurt whispered, holding on to Sebastian, unwilling to let go, to ever let go. "I am so sorry I pushed you. I shouldn't have any say in your memories. I keep forgetting how hard all of this is on you."

"No," Sebastian said, burying his nose into Kurt's hair, "no. Don't apologize. We're human. That's the most painful thing about all this. You and I, we're fallible. We're going to make mistakes. And this isn't something that we can fix just yet. But…" Sebastian had a thought, but he pushed it to the side. No need to dwell on things they couldn't change, paths they couldn't take, so he stuck to the things that were important here and now. "So…are you still going to marry me?" Sebastian asked with an honest fear that Kurt may have changed his mind.

Kurt gazed into Sebastian's eyes. He kissed his fingertips and then pressed them against Sebastian's lips. Sebastian kissed them, closing his eyes and pressing his lips hard to them, moving down to press another urgent kiss to Kurt's wrist. When Sebastian opened his eyes, Kurt's eyes were glowing a hot cerulean blue.

"I would like to see someone try and stop me."


	13. Owner of My Heart - Part 4: Promises

Kurt and Sebastian stood side by side at the shoreline, face to face with the Atlantic, staring out at the sun as it transformed the color of the sky from bright blue, to baby pink, then to champagne gold. Kurt glanced away, down at the ring cupped in his hand, and smiled. A plain 14kt gold band – worn, slightly scuffed, thin in places from constant wear - with three diamond pieces set into the metal. It wasn't a fancy ring, and it wasn't worth too much. Kurt remembered, as a young boy, his father having the ring appraised for a few hundred dollars. They were in dire need, but the amount wasn't high enough to convince him to sell, though he probably wouldn't have sold it for any price. If Kurt had his choice, he might get something finer for Sebastian, something more befitting a boy raised with wealth and privilege. But then again, this ring – Kurt's father's wedding ring – had been a symbol of undying love, and it still had so much more love to represent. That made it the finest ring Kurt could think of to give.

In Sebastian's hand, he held a black, velvet box, with his own offering to Kurt safe inside.

_"So…are you still going to marry me?"_

_"I would like to see someone try and stop me."_

_Sebastian laughed, brushing a light kiss over Kurt's jaw. "Good," he said. "Then I guess it's time I gave you this." Sebastian reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet box. When Kurt saw it, he gasped, the blue fire in his eyes dancing with excitement._

_"It's nothing much," Sebastian said, handing over the box, chuckling as he watched Kurt attack it. "It's pretty silly, actually…"_

_Kurt turned the box over in his hands twice, trying to pry open the wrong side in his eagerness to see what it held. He found the correct edge and opened it. Inside, nestled in a bed of dark blue velvet, sat a silver ring. Kurt looked it over, his brow drawing in the middle. Unique carvings and embossing covered the band that Kurt couldn't readily place. _

_"I made it," Sebastian explained, "from that quarter you kept." _

_Kurt recognized it at once and his heart swelled. Kurt thought he had lost that quarter, his precious keepsake. Now, after days of covertly searching every pocket of every outfit they owned, he knew exactly where it had gone. "You thought I didn't see that, did you?" Sebastian asked with a smirk, and Kurt shook his head. Kurt thought he had been so sly at hiding it. He should have known that Sebastian knew. Sebastian pulled the ring from its box and took Kurt's left hand. "I hope that every time you look at it, you'll know for sure how much I love you," he whispered. "That no one can take me away from you. No one."_

_"Oh, Sebastian," Kurt sighed, holding his hand up to look at the ring in the light, the fine details of what was once a quarter still visible. "It's…it's amazing. I can't believe you did this."_

_"I wish it was more," Sebastian admitted._

_"It's more than enough," Kurt said. "In fact, it might be more incredible than the ring I have for you."_

_"You…you have a ring for me?" Sebastian asked, the thought never occurring to him that Kurt might get him a ring._

_"Yes," Kurt said. "It's kind of a hand-me-down. I hope you don't mind."_

_"Why would I ever mind?" Sebastian asked. "It could come from a Cracker Jack box. As long as it's from you, I'll love it always."_

_"It was my father's wedding ring," Kurt said sadly. "I've kept it with me since the day he died. I know he would have loved you, and I know he would have wanted you to have it."_

_Sebastian began to object, probably because of some learned instinct to turn such an immense gift down, but he couldn't. He knew it would accomplish nothing other than hurting Kurt's feelings. Sebastian felt honored to be given the ring of a great man - a wonderful man, husband, and father. If Kurt wanted Sebastian to have his father's ring, the only thing Kurt probably had left of the man who died saving his life, then who was Sebastian to say no?_

_"Thank you," Sebastian said. "I happily accept." Kurt hugged Sebastian tight, and Sebastian hugged him back, biting his lip, with another thought nagging at his brain. "I was hoping that you might also do me a favor?"_

_"Anything," Kurt said, breaking their embrace to gaze at his ring, loving the weight of it on his finger, the feeling of it wrapped around his skin._

_"That fantasy I showed you…I don't want you to remove it," Sebastian said, "but I was thinking…you're so good with that power of yours. Could you maybe…take him out of it? Erase his face and his voice?"_

_Kurt stopped looking at his ring and looked at Sebastian instead._

_"Are you sure?" Kurt asked. Kurt recognized the irony of asking that, the fact that he should be jumping at this opportunity, not questioning it, but now that he could think clearly, he suddenly had an uneasy feeling at the thought of getting rid of another of Sebastian's memories, as much as he wanted to._

_"Yes," Sebastian said. "I don't want him in my brain. I just want you. Would you do it?" _

_Kurt twirled the ring on his finger as he thought it over._

_"You can consider it a wedding present to me," Sebastian added, hoping to earn a smile._

_"What if…what if I get jealous again?" Kurt asked. "What if I can't control myself and I accidentally do something to him?"_

_Sebastian shrugged. _

_"Meh…" he replied with a playful smile, but Kurt could feel Sebastian's mind, feel where that was a very real fear of his as well. But this was obviously more important to Sebastian than what Kurt might do, and he was willing to take that chance._

_Or, he trusted Kurt that much._

_Kurt searched Sebastian's brain for a way to make an argument against this, but there was none. Sebastian loved him. Sebastian wanted only him. With Kurt's power no longer wreaking havoc with his emotions, he was absolutely certain._

_"If that's what you really want," Kurt said, needing to be sure that Sebastian was actually, amazingly, insanely willing to take this kind of gamble on him._

_Sebastian pressed a kiss to his finger, then brushed that finger against Kurt's lip, and Kurt kissed him back._

_"That's what I really want."_

It took longer to erase the memory of that man from Sebastian's brain than it had the other memory. Where the memory of Sebastian being abused had a clear cut beginning and end, the memory of Sebastian performing 'the ritual' in the temple had other things that bled into it. Kurt wanted to make sure he erased every bit. In the end Kurt was able to seamlessly transform Sebastian walking into the temple with him stepping into the white light, so that it seemed like he walked straight into a dream. Afterward, in his new memory, he left the temple without a glance at that man and ran straight to Kurt's cell.

That part came out somewhat choppy, but it was the best Kurt could do.

Sebastian was so overcome when he tried to recall the man's face and couldn't, that he cried.

As they stood watching the sunset, they did so with Sebastian having no memory of the man who took his virginity – no voice to haunt him, no face to put the act to. Just the fantasy of Kurt beneath him, naked in the dappled sunlight, smiling into kisses, moaning Sebastian's name, whispering _I love you_ until he came in Sebastian's arms.

Rationally, Sebastian knew it was a lie, but it was the lie he wanted, and that was easier to live with than the truth.

They both wore suits they found at the Salvation Army, and which Kurt had styled up with decorative stitches from his talented fingers until they looked close to designer. After searching through old Thomas Brothers Guides and Almanacs, Sebastian found them the perfect spot along the shore, where an outcropping of rocks created a private cove that funneled in the rays of the setting sun perfectly. They saw the full moon waiting for them in the sky, growing brighter overhead, and when the sun finally touched the water, Sebastian took Kurt's hand as their cue to begin.

Kurt slipped the ring he held in his hand on to Sebastian's finger. Using the power of his flame, he resized it, pared it down so it would fit its new owner. Kurt turned Sebastian's hand from side to side, smiling proudly at the fit, then he bent and kissed the ring on Sebastian's finger. As the sun sank deeper into the horizon and the moon showed her face to a restful world, Kurt recited words Sebastian had found for them – words he felt suited them perfectly.

"You cannot possess me for I belong to myself, But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give. You cannot command me, for I am a free person, But I shall serve you in those ways you require, and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand."

It was a beautiful but bittersweet promise. Kurt couldn't belong to Sebastian, not completely, not just yet. He didn't actually belong to himself, was not his own to give. Kurt was what he was, and he had a supposed higher purpose, which meant that as a human being, he was nothing.

But to Sebastian, Kurt was everything – his entire world, and always would be.

Sebastian slid the ring he made Kurt on his finger and Kurt smiled. The ring molded itself to his skin, adhering to his flesh as if it were a missing piece returned to its owner. Sebastian bent and kissed the ring on Kurt's hand, and with what voice he had left before he lost it entirely to the sacred joy of the moment, he said - "I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night, And the eyes into which I smile in the morning. I pledge to you the first bite from my meat, And the first drink from my cup. I pledge to you my living and dying, equally in your care, And tell no strangers our grievances. This is my wedding vow to you. This is a marriage of equals…"

Sebastian inhaled an unsteady breath and stared into Kurt's eyes, speaking directly to that point where their souls connected.

"And beyond this, I will cherish and honor you through this life, and into the next."

Kurt hadn't heard that last line before - Sebastian had only uncovered it moments before they'd left for the beach - and it stabbed into the heart of him.

_Through this life, and into the next._

Kurt nearly cried out. He fell into Sebastian's arms and held him, because regardless of their planning, regardless of their dreams, there still remained the possibility that one of them would leave the other far sooner than they hoped.

Secure in one another's embrace, they watched the sunlight diminish and the moon rise completely, the stars coming out one by one to greet them and send blessings their way. Kurt liked to believe that his mom and dad watched over him, and if they did, they'd be shining down on him from those heavenly stars above, making a place for him at their table, as they were taught at the temple. And Kurt knew they'd be making a place for Sebastian, too. That they would offer him the love that Sebastian's parents neglected to give him. The idea of the four of them being a family in the end gave Kurt strength, and he held on to it with his entire being.

That strength and Sebastian were all he truly had.

After their private ceremony, when they could no longer take the cold night air no matter how tightly they held on to one another, and after they ate dinner, they spent the night lying side by side in bed, projecting images into each other's minds of the things they wanted to do in the future, things they wanted to experience together. Kurt's first image was of the two of them in Paris, sitting at an outdoor café, drinking coffees and eating croissants, watching the sun rise over the Eiffel Tower. Sebastian's image was of the two of them snowboarding down a mountain of fresh, white snow, laughing into the wind, faces red from repeated rides, Sebastian swerving to grab Kurt's hand on the way. Kurt showed Sebastian a vision of the two of them going to the movies, sitting hand in hand, sharing a tub of popcorn, reaching for their soda at the same time and laughing when their hands touched. Sebastian's next vision was of the two of them skinny dipping in the Atlantic. Kurt countered that with them eating breakfast in bed, and Sebastian added to it, an image of them feeding each other and kissing, Kurt's lips covered in crème fraiche that Sebastian licked slowly clean. On and on it went, with each vision becoming more and more intimate, but neither of them delving into a fantasy of the one thing they wanted – making love as husbands. Eventually, they simply fell asleep in each other's arms, and for once they felt safe and sated, and normal.

Until the broomstick leaning against the door fell over, and Sebastian knew they had to go.


	14. The Kiss

**A/N:** _Kurt and Sebastian are in mortal danger, surrounded by an army of demons preparing to do battle. But with Sebastian on the brink of death, Kurt doesn't feel like fighting anymore, and is ready to give up, fate of the world be damned._

_Warning for talk of demons, loose interpretation of religious themes, angst, anxiety, and nightmares._

_Requested by grantxgust and written for the number AU prompt #20 "You need to wake up because I can't do this without you." This one-shot puts things a bit out of order, as this would happen way after where we left off._

"You need to wake up because I can't do this without you!"

Kurt's body shook in waves of desperation as he stared into the face of his one true love – his loyal priest. Kurt willed him to wake up, pleaded, negotiated, but Sebastian's eyes stayed closed despite Kurt's begging. They were both engulfed in the blue flame they shared, Kurt's divine power, but around Sebastian's body it had started to flicker, fighting to grow stronger – or possibly threatening to go out. Kurt put his hands on Sebastian's face, the pale skin beneath the flame becoming steadily colder.

"Sebastian," Kurt pleaded, his trembling voice breaking the name in two. He grabbed Sebastian by the shoulders and shook him hard. "Please, wake up! Please!"

Behind them, Kurt felt the oncoming horde gathering – all levels of dark demons rising from the depths, materializing through the concrete ground like wisps of obsidian smoke. Spotting the Scion and his ailing priest aglow in the inky night, the evil army rushed for them, filling the air with their eerie, blood curdling war cries. The blue fire beneath Kurt's skin burned brighter, blindingly bright and hot, melting the asphalt beneath his knees until he started to sink into it. Kurt fended the raiders off without turning his head or raising a hand, forks of wild blue lightning firing in all directions, targeting anything within reach; Kurt could only hope a streak didn't fly astray and hit an innocent bystander.

He almost didn't care who he hit, not with his priest unconscious at his knees, bordering somewhere between life and…not death, not necessarily, but there were things in the universe worse than death, and Kurt didn't want that for Sebastian.

"Please," Kurt wept, tears rolling down his cheeks, dissolving with a hiss when they touched the searing heat of his skin. "I…I need you, Sebastian. Don't leave me. Don't…"

Kurt put his hand to Sebastian's chest. He felt the heart beneath his palm beating but the pulse weak and thready.

The demons closed in around them. Nearer and nearer they crept, trapping Kurt and Sebastian within a circle of their vile existence. Kurt's skin crawled with it. He felt the attack in his blood, his whole body combusting, preparing to ignite, the weapon inside him screaming to be unleashed, but he didn't have the heart to slay them, not if he couldn't have his Sebastian back.

Kurt realized too late that _this_ was the true danger of the Scion falling in love – not the diminishing of his power, but the loss of hope when love died. His grief consumed everything. Nothing else mattered – not even the fate of the world, billions of people who didn't know they relied on him about to perish over the death of a single teenaged boy.

"Please," Kurt cried, bending over Sebastian's body, covering it with his own, "it wasn't…it wasn't supposed to end like this." Kurt saw a haze of sinister fog tightening in on them and he created a protective ring of fire around them. Left and right, demons broke against it, shattered, evaporating when they touched it. Their wails added to the chaos, drowning out Kurt's cries.

Kurt was safe for the moment to mourn, but for every hundred demons that died, one found a way through.

"I love you, Sebastian," Kurt sobbed onto the priest's chest as the blue flame that Sebastian borrowed faded further away, his heart skittering almost to a stop. "I love you."

Kurt looked into Sebastian's face, a face too young for death, so solemn but with no peace. Kurt couldn't protect him, couldn't save him, couldn't give him the life he deserved.

Sebastian gave so much of himself to Kurt. He had since the day they met. Kurt longed to give something back, something they could both take with them when they left this world...and he was running out of time.

A thought hit Kurt and he didn't hesitate. He bowed forward and kissed Sebastian, the way he had always dreamed of doing.

"I love you," Kurt whispered against still lips, sliding his mouth over Sebastian's, his first kiss soon to be his last. What did it matter now? The war was over. They lost.

But the Scion hadn't been defeated.

He gave up.

He lost the love of his life and he stopped fighting, because the world didn't matter anymore. Not a single person in it.

"Sebastian," Kurt cried as his own flame extinguished, as the power abandoned him, leaving him vulnerable to the encroaching evil. "I love you, Sebastian. I always have."

Kurt felt Sebastian's body jerk, and Kurt's head snapped up. Many clawed hands had Sebastian locked in their grasp, yanking him away.

"No!" Kurt screamed, grabbing onto Sebastian's shirt and holding hard, fingers curling into the fabric, nails digging through into his palms, but there was nothing he could do. He wasn't strong enough. He had no power left. He gave it up when Sebastian passed through the veil and Kurt had kissed him. "No! You can't…you can't have him!"

"Kuuuurt," the wicked voices taunted him. "Kuuuurt! Wake up, Kuuuuurt! It's all a dream, Kuuuurt!" Their evil laughter overlapped, filling Kurt's head to bursting, until a raw agony stabbed behind his eyes.

"No!" Kurt wanted to cover his ears, to block out the sound, but he refused to break his hold on Sebastian's body. The laughter and the jeers wove like thorny vines through his brain, pricking where it touched, bleeding him of all his sanity, but he didn't care.

If they wanted Sebastian, they would have to take Kurt, too.

Kurt felt hands grab him from behind and give him a violent shake.

"Kurt!"

Suddenly, there was a new voice in his head. This one wasn't foul, wasn't tainted. It cut through the overgrowth, healing the wounds, sweet in his brain like a cool kiss of spring rain.

Kurt spun his head around. The horde still surrounded him, cackling with teeth bared and eyes glowing blood red; Sebastian lay on the ground unconscious. No one else had appeared.

"Kurt!"

Another shake. Kurt looked around, but there was still no one.

"Who's there?" Kurt called out, head spinning around again, turning on his neck until his muscles ached. "Who is that?"

"Kurt, you have to wake up!" the voice commanded louder, overwhelming everything else. The demons seemed to hear it, too, shrinking back past the scorched ring on the ground where there once raged a wall of flame.

Kurt looked to Sebastian's body, hoping for answers, but his hands grabbed only air. The body he had fought so hard over had disappeared.

"Sebastian!" Kurt screamed, looking from demon to demon as they shrank back farther, dropping through the ground and out of his sight.

"Kurt!" the voice repeated, becoming a single spark in Kurt's mind, lighting his eyes, refilling his head with the power he had lost.

"Sebastian!"

Kurt saw the light growing in his mind, or he was projecting it. It manifested as a narrow plane punching a hole in the darkness - a portal. A window. Kurt knew that window. It was the window that connected his mind to Sebastian's. Kurt squinted into the light – his fire calling out to it. He saw random images flash by – a bed, a rosebush, a chocolate cake, a candle…Sebastian's eyes. His mind held on to that image, let it consume him – eyes of moss green, clear and honest, full of an undying, unwavering devotion. Kurt made those eyes his talisman and he ran for them. His feet stuck in the asphalt and he struggled to break free. The world started melting around him, everywhere he looked, everything he touched. The sky dripped onto his shoulders – it had no color, no substance. Kurt became the fire, running as fast as he could, lifting through the murk, transcending substance and transforming into pure energy. He burst through the window, forcing it to widen so he could make it through, and found himself in their small hotel room. He saw it in panorama for only a second – a flash – and then he opened his eyes.

Kurt sat up quickly, ready for another fight, or to run, but the spinning in his head forced him back down. He didn't attempt to move again, but the world whizzed by in front of his eyes. He blinked, trying to settle the spinning Earth down long enough for him to figure out what had happened. He saw burn marks. He smelled smoke. He heard a crackle and a popping sound, like wet logs in a fireplace. He felt hands on his shoulders, and amid the twirling and whirling of the room, he saw worried green eyes, waiting to catch his gaze.

"Se-Sebastian?" Kurt stuttered with a tiny disbelieving laugh. "Is that…is that really you?"

"Yes," Sebastian said, carefully taking Kurt into his arms when he felt his Scion crumble. "It's me. It's all right now."

"I thought…I thought you were dead," Kurt muttered, sniffling into Sebastian's shoulder, stealing the scent of the soap on the priest's skin to cover the putrid smell of burnt demon flesh.

"No," Sebastian said, shaking his head, holding Kurt tighter so Kurt could feel him, feel Sebastian's bare chest against his skin, feel his heart pounding against his ribcage, echoing into Kurt's body. Kurt wrapped his arms around his priest and held him, shaking so hard that he had to clasp his hands together behind Sebastian's back to keep from letting go.

"I was so afraid I'd lost you," Kurt whispered, tears falling to Sebastian's shoulder. Kurt heard a quiet hiss and looked at his priest more closely. His skin held the subtle blue glow that Kurt's body emitted, a glow that Kurt had started to equate with life more than death as long as Sebastian carried it. Kurt heard a loud _snap_ and he jumped. His eyes drifted around the room, sweeping over ashen marks on the walls, seared curtains curling toward their rods, throwing sparks toward the ceiling, and one cracked window, the fissures outlined in black demon blood. Kurt focused on the destruction, lent his power towards it, and immediately everything began to right itself.

"What happened?" Kurt asked, watching as black marks erased and the crack in the window mended.

"I don't know exactly," Sebastian admitted apologetically. "I don't know how they got in, but they were mostly defeated by the time I woke up."

"Are you hurt?" Kurt asked. He pulled quickly out of Sebastian's embrace to look him over, inspecting his arms and his chest, working his way up his neck to his head, fingers exploring through his hair, looking for bumps and bruises.

"No," Sebastian chuckled, letting Kurt look his fill, though he knew he wasn't hurt. Kurt's blue fire healed him, the way it always did. "I was asleep…in your arms and…"

Kurt swallowed hard, the memory of Sebastian lying dead in his arms fresh in his mind.

"Did…did you fight…"

"No," Sebastian said with a sad shake of his head. "Like I've told you, the power doesn't live in me the way it lives in you. _You_ saved us." Sebastian cupped a hand to Kurt's cheek and kissed his forehead, letting his lips linger against Kurt's skin. Sebastian heard Kurt sniffle and looked into his eyes, eyes so conflicted by emotion that they overflowed, unable to contain it. Sebastian caught a tear on his thumb and brought it to his lips, kissing it away. Kurt tried his best to smile but he ended up back in Sebastian's arms, indulging himself in crying and allowing himself to be comforted. Sebastian wished they could stay like this longer, stay like this forever, that there would be a time for just them. But that time wasn't now. "We have to go, Scion. We can't stay here."

Kurt heard his title and nodded. He hated it, but he knew that Sebastian was right. They needed to go.

Even though he was weak, even though he felt like he could sleep for a month, he let Sebastian help him up out of bed, the priest's hands holding his giving him the strength to stand.

"You finish fixing the damage in here and I'll start bringing the suitcases down to the truck," Sebastian said, holding Kurt's arms until he could stand on his own. When Kurt seemed steady on his feet, Sebastian leapt into action, taking their bags (which they lived out of in lieu of putting their clothes in drawers, just for such last minute escapes), throwing a few more items in them, zippering them up, and heading with them out the door to the parking lot.

Kurt's legs wobbled, his heart drumming hard, exhausting on its own with its insistent, rapid beating. His body surged with adrenaline from his nightmare that turned out to be a real demon attack, and every flutter of the newly repaired curtain, every flicker of the reassembled lamp, every creak of the mending window, made his body bristle.

But there was nothing. No more demons. No more attack. His blood slowed, his mind stopped its anxious racing, and he tried to think calmly while he went about his task.

Sebastian dying wasn't real. Kurt had to keep repeating that to himself to keep from losing his head. Sebastian didn't die. But it felt that way. Kurt felt like he had lost him, and it ruined him down to his soul. What was that? Was it a premonition? A warning? Was it a strategy the demons tried to use to defeat him? Or was it one of the tools of his inner power to trigger the flame while he slept?

Kurt didn't know. There was so much about this power that he didn't understand, and there were no books, no scrolls, no documents that they knew of that could teach Kurt how he was meant to use it. But it saved their lives. It had used Kurt unconsciously and rescued them from the demons. Kurt didn't like being used without his permission, which is how he felt, but he was grateful to live another day to further investigate its secrets. More than anything, he wanted Sebastian's opinion on what had happened, but now wasn't the time to discuss it. Now was the time to get to safety.

Sebastian felt that same way, loading their bags into the truck, then taking a second to sit in the driver's seat and catch his breath.

No, this wasn't the time to discuss it. Sebastian didn't even know how he would bring it up.

He had to deal with his own feelings about it first. He was ecstatic and terrified at the same time, the mixture making his body run hot and cold at odd intervals. He raised trembling fingers to his lips and traced gently across them. It hadn't happened the way he originally dreamed, but he wasn't complaining – not one bit.

Sebastian thought about it and laughed, relief filling his veins, speeding the cadence of his heart. He could have this – this one thing. They both could. It would belong to them.

But Kurt didn't know yet. How would Sebastian tell him, this powerful being, who had been warned his entire life against intimate physical contact, told that it was forbidden to him, that he had just given Sebastian his first kiss…and that it didn't take his power away?

That's how Sebastian woke up – with Kurt crying against his lips, whispering _I love you_ into his mouth, and kissing him over and over. But Sebastian couldn't stop himself with one kiss. He almost took things too far. He grabbed Kurt in his arms, rolled him over on to his back. He would have taken Kurt then and there if he hadn't realized that Kurt was actually asleep, locked in the middle of a horrific nightmare while a legion of the damned swarmed their room, intent on killing them.

Because whatever else Kurt was – a pure and eternal weapon of good to defeat an ultimate evil - he was like a drug to Sebastian.

And in that moment, with Kurt's mouth on his, overcome by Kurt's heat, his fire, the love Sebastian could feel in every whisper and touch, the bittersweet pain, Sebastian didn't want to stop until he had him completely.

That made Sebastian more dangerous than any demon horde.


	15. Kurt Hummel - Master of the Flame

**A/N:** **Now that Kurt and Sebastian are hand-fasted, the anxiety of hiding out from a nameless fear is over…and the real threat to their safety begins.**

**Warning for anxiety, demons, loose interpretation of religious themes, and supernatural elements. Inspired partially by the Kurtoberfest prompt 'magic'.**

Kurt and Sebastian's hand-fasting was the happiest night of Kurt's life. It was a dream come true. Something he never thought he'd ever have was, miraculously, his.

A husband.

And not just any husband.

The only boy in his life he had ever wanted, could ever want.

The one true love of his life.

Innocently, Kurt thought that had to be the answer to all of this. His way of defending the world from evil, because there could be no evil in the world as long as this existed – the ring on his finger proclaiming their love. The sacrifices they made and yet, they could still be together.

The man who slept by his side, who protected him, who cared for him, who would give his life for him, would always be his.

They fell asleep, Kurt and Sebastian, hand in hand, not knowing what such an innocent gesture would do. Their wedding over, hands joined after vows spoken seemed like a natural thing. Since they couldn't make love, this simple show of devotion was one of the few things they could share. It was something small, just for them.

But it didn't end there, at their hands clasped together, behind closed doors.

Instead of defeating the evil, it opened the doorway to something dangerous. Something that had been searching for them. After the ceremony, it found them.

And now there was no hiding from it anymore.

"Kurt! Behind you!" Sebastian yelled, keeping pace behind the Scion – behind his husband - even though he could easily outrun him.

Kurt, a single ball of angry blue flame racing through the black night, turned over his shoulder, and with both hands outstretched, fired, missing Sebastian's head by barely an inch and shooting into the horde. A chorus of screams rose, hisses as rotting flesh burned, searing off bone, dropping to the ground, leaving a trail. The rain of flame from Kurt's hands succeeded in causing the retreat of some, but it thoroughly enraged others - minions and lackeys, minor demons all of them, with little in the way of magic at their command. But what they lacked in actual strength or size, they made up for in numbers. They arrived shortly after Kurt and Sebastian's hand-fasting ceremony. Their powers combined – not from the flame, but from them being totally and completely in love – somehow broke through their protective shell and into the universe, overshadowing all. It became a beacon of pure light - for good, and for bad. The good did its best to quietly protect them.

But it called the evil out by the dozens to start with.

And now, the hundreds.

Kurt had been having nightmares about them. They pummeled his psyche with images of armies on the attack, creepy-crawlies of the Underworld rising to the surface, an unstoppable, destructive mass. They tormented Kurt with memories of his father's death, and more recently, his mother's, showing him not only what he knew of their demises, but where they were in the present, their faces twisted in pain, frozen in agony, their souls trapped in the abyss, neither rising to the heavens nor descending in to hell.

Stuck in purgatory, sentenced to watching their son, the only hope for the world, fail, until they themselves were torn apart.

It tried to weaken him with feelings of loss and helplessness, but Sebastian kept those feelings away. As long as Kurt had him, he would never be alone. He would never be lost.

The demons figured that out, too, and mid-attack switched targets, voraciously going after the thing they knew would hurt Kurt the most.

"Kurt!" Sebastian screamed. "Kurt! I need a little help here!"

Sebastian, to a degree, controlled the blue flame, too, but it wasn't a part of him the way it was for Kurt. Sebastian's focus was everywhere at once – running, navigating, trying to keep Kurt safe. He couldn't do all those things and use the flame, too. He knew a few spells as an acolyte, and used them when he could. One in particular split the earth, causing cracks to form where he stepped, which helped to rid them of a few demons, but even more climbed up out of the earth when the first wave fell through.

Sebastian groaned, and rolled his eyes when he saw it.

"What the hell?"

"Sebastian!" Kurt yelled, shooting one ball of blue flame after another from his palms. "Now's not the time for language. Concentrate!"

Sebastian kept the flame at a simmer on his skin, but the minions adapted; they learned. The ones that attacked Sebastian didn't seem effected by the level of fire he kept broiling beneath his flesh, and Sebastian didn't know how to dial up the power _and_ keep running.

Kurt skidded to a stop and turned. His flame overpowered him, drawing the minions to it, and picking them off as they leapt against it. But the ones focused on Sebastian would not stop their attack, and he was too far to get to. Kurt called out to the flame in Sebastian, brought it to life, created a wave that shot out to reach him, and all around, the minions fell to its power.

"They keep coming!" Kurt cried as Sebastian finally made his way over. "There…there're so many of them."

"Like moths," Sebastian said, thinking over their situation out loud, "attracted to your light. Kurt!" Sebastian snapped his fingers at this revelation. "Try turning it off!"

Kurt put his fingers to his temple and concentrated on extinguishing his flame, on letting it wash from his body the way it always did when he released its energy back to the universe. But nothing changed. He tried to push it away, but he could feel the power latch on tight with no intention of being doused. It flooded every molecule of Kurt's body and curled its claws in, holding on with the immense potency.

"I can't!" Kurt said, shaking in frustration. "I don't know why! I can't calm my mind! I can't…it won't let me! It wants to fight! It won't…it won't back down!"

Sebastian watched the creatures crawl at them, rising as mist from the cracks and crevices they'd created and taking on various foul forms – demons, scorpions, roaches, giant spiders, zombies, a trove of nightmarish beasts meant to frighten Kurt into submission.

But Kurt only had one real fear…which was why they all had their sights set on Sebastian, and not Kurt, jaws unhinging, teeth clashing, jagged claws scratching into the earth as they pulled themselves along. It unnerved Sebastian, the way their black, empty eyes honed in on him, how they crowded over one another to get at him. If he stood there and focused on it, it would probably drive him mad. As it was, it burrowed beneath his skin, thoughts of what they would do to him if they got a hold of him, tearing him limb from limb, gouging out his eyes, ripping out his beating heart, eating him alive.

He had to concentrate on defeating them, and not let the fear they fed him paralyze him. Kurt was powerful, but unfocused. He couldn't do this alone. That's why Sebastian was with him. While Kurt's power came from raw emotion, Sebastian had to be reason. He had to come up with a way to be rid of them, something he hadn't thought of. He could feel the fire in Kurt's skin grow brighter. He felt it fighting Kurt's restraint to be free. It wanted to devour, to consume.

Who were they to keep it from doing just that?

"Let it go, then," Sebastian said.

Kurt shifted his eyes momentarily to Sebastian, both brows shooting to his hairline.

"What? What I can't…" Kurt stuttered, picturing the innocent people that they might hit, people oblivious to the battle being fought while they slept, if he wasn't careful. "It's too much…"

"Maybe it's just enough, Kurt," Sebastian said. "This power is a part of you, but it also has an intelligence. It's righteous. It won't destroy the innocent."

_I hope. _If his studies into the Old Testament were accurate, he couldn't claim that with any real certainty. In theory, if a perceived innocent is destroyed by Kurt's power, then, at heart, they weren't truly innocent.

They'd have to live with that as reassurance.

"Sebastian…"

"Do you trust me?" Sebastian asked, holding Kurt's upper arms, becoming his anchor so he wouldn't feel adrift.

Kurt swallowed, but his answer didn't falter.

"Always."

"Then let it go," Sebastian said. "Let it take over…" Something bony clamped down on Sebastian's ankle, and he yelled, "Now! Now! Do it now!"

There was a snap somewhere in Sebastian's brain, echoing through that window that connected him and Kurt, and the light inside both of them doubled. Sebastian heard crunching, like feet stomping a hundred insects, and the hand grabbing at his ankle crumbled. The light continued to grow, and with it, the deafening roar of a tornado bearing down over them, sweeping everything dark and sinister away. It pounded in Sebastian's ears, nearly punctured his eardrums, and brought Sebastian to his knees.

Because Sebastian wasn't Kurt. He borrowed the power, and the power was happy to use him, but he was still a sinner. In the face of Kurt's power, on his knees was where he belonged.

Sebastian spun and ducked behind Kurt's body, crouching low to the ground and putting his hands over his ears.

The light that flowed through Kurt was a combination of every emotion Kurt had, in levels that he couldn't control. Love, rage, sorrow, confusion, defiance, acceptance became a collective force, pushing and pulling against itself, wanting to stay separate, needing to be one, losing itself and then finding itself again – a double helix of stability and instability.

It clapped together like thunder and shot out to infinity, sweeping over the horde that surrounded them like a ripple of pure energy, dissolving every inch of filth. It decimated the minions, it scoured the ground, destroying every piece of evidence, every trace of them and every other evil that had ever touched this section of earth.

"Kurt!" Sebastian screamed, his hands clamped tight over his ears. "Kurt, stop! Stop!"

And then, his voice was gone. He felt himself disintegrating into the flame, every evil within him purged, and the core of himself going with it. He knew it when he felt it sizzle his skin. Judgment. A judgment that didn't belong to Kurt. A judgment that belonged to the universe itself, and it had deemed him unworthy.

And in a blink, everything was gone.

The demons.

Sebastian.

And Kurt.

But where the demons had dissolved into energy, Kurt and Sebastian had shifted out of life for their own safety. Kurt's light had attracted attention. People flooded out of nearby apartments to investigate the blue flashes and the intense noise. It had lasted for them only half a second. For that half a second, Kurt and Sebastian didn't exist, their cells pulled completely apart. They swirled together, fused, mixed, and for a precious moment, the two boys – friends, soul mates, husbands - became one.

They shot into the atmosphere, became one with the ebb and flow of the galaxy, traveled through stars and satellites.

The universe tried to take Sebastian from Kurt.

Kurt looked at the universe with fire in his eyes and said, "Not a chance."

With the strength of his defiance, an ultimatum was made, and Kurt, the last Scion that Earth would ever see, won. They slingshot back to the planet, ending where they began, but hours later, in a dismal back alley, Kurt with his eyes imploring the heavens for guidance, and Sebastian, on his knees at Kurt's feet.

The air was quiet. The night was still. The alley was empty except for the two of them, and suddenly, Kurt found it hard to stand.

"Sebastian?" he whimpered, knees weak.

"I'm here," his priest said, wrapping his arms around Kurt's waist and helping him to the ground. They both felt the vibrations of the earth singing to them. They were safe, for the moment.

"Sebastian?" Kurt looked at his husband, cradled in the safety of his arms. "Sebastian, you're hurt!" There was alarm in Kurt's voice – fear. Sebastian looked down at his skin, chuckling when he saw the marks scorched there. "Did I…do this to you?"

"I…I think so." Sebastian's skin glowed, engraved with branching scars, like forks of electricity burnt into his flesh. He laughed at them, at the power that made them. "It was incredible," he said. "Like…being struck by lightning, and then, becoming light and air. I don't think I could ever describe it." Sebastian looked into Kurt's horrified eyes and smiled. "I was with you," he whispered. "No, I was a part of you and I…they tried to take me from you, and you wouldn't let them."

"I told you," Kurt said, using his fingertips to trace the lines on Sebastian's skin. "I will always protect you. I won't let anyone take you from me. I'd rather…"

"Shhh, don't say it." Sebastian held his husband close. "You did it, Kurt. You defeated them."

"_We _defeated them," Kurt amended. "But more will come."

"They've found you out," Sebastian said sympathetically. "They figured out that the Scion has left the temple. They know you're on the run."

"They won't stop," Kurt said, his throat catching as realization hit. "Every minute, they'll be after us." That catch turned into panic, his whole body shaking with it. Sebastian tried to combat it by wrapping his arms around him tighter. "We won't be safe."

It was on Sebastian's tongue that they should find someone to help them, look for aid, but he knew that they couldn't.

Trust no one, he'd been told, and by the one man he had trusted with his life.

If they could trust no one, then there had to be another way.

Sebastian looked down, at his arms over Kurt's, at the rings on their fingers, and he knew the way.

"Yes, we will," Sebastian said, overlapping their hands so that their wedding rings touched. "You'll be safe with me, and I'll be safe with you. They can't touch us, as long as we have each other."


	16. Lights Will Guide You Home

**A/N: After their first real battle with evil, Kurt wakes to the sound of Sebastian having a nightmare, and Kurt uses his power to help him see that there's nothing for him to fear.**

**Written for the Hummel Holidays prompt 'lights', and inspired by the Klaine Advent Drabble prompts 'hope' and 'passion'. **

_"__Kurt…Kurt, no…Kurt…don't go…don't…don't leave me…"_

Kurt rolled over in bed at the first whimper. He'd heard it in his heart and in his head before the sound even left his husband's throat. When it passed over Sebastian's lips, it was so soft, a ghost of spoken words, that had he been in a deep, comfortable sleep, and without his special connection to this man that he loved, he might not have heard. But it floated from Sebastian's lips, a whisper really, and then was gone, but the pain behind them remained.

That pain woke Kurt the rest of the way from his own troubled dreams – vivid nightmares he had chosen not to share with his priest. He'd closed off his mind, a talent he rarely used, so he didn't catch when similar nightmares popped into Sebastian's head.

If he had, Kurt would have told him that nothing in this world or beyond could pull them apart. He would have never let Sebastian go.

Kurt regarded Sebastian's sleeping face – tensed jaw, twitching cheek, lightning marks on his skin flashing with blue flame, eyes searching behind his eyelids, tracking something, a demon most likely. Sebastian was trapped in the battle they had just returned from, but inside his head, the outcome had gone very different. Kurt had to help him. When Kurt needed it most, Sebastian had given Kurt faith. Now, Kurt had to give some of it back. He needed to remind his husband that yes, it had been close, the demons almost overwhelmed them, but they came out victorious in the end, and in a big way.

Kurt and Sebastian were still learning, but outside of the temple, the tests at the end of each lesson threatened to be pass or fail, life or death. Nine years of training within a life span of seventeen short years wasn't sufficient to face the enemy they were being forced to defeat, and none of that training ever prepared them to _fight_. Kurt and Sebastian knew the role of the Scion was mostly unclear, but prophecy proclaimed him a weapon. Why did the priests never think to teach Kurt and the acolytes how to fight? What Sebastian knew about self-defense, he had taught himself; the priests had been preparing to send the Scion and his chosen protector out into the world blind.

Why?

Kurt would tackle those concerns later, when the nightmares were over, and this new battle won.

Kurt breathed out and calmly let the flame take over. He entered Sebastian's mind, and with careful guidance, let the magic of the fire talk to him.

Sebastian's mind was a wonderful place, filled with crystal clear memories of the two of them growing up together, of joy, and passion, and love, so meticulously set in stone in his brain that filing through them felt like watching a movie.

Sebastian's memories reminded Kurt of the good in his life, that hope still existed for him, a future beyond duty and sacrifice. Kurt repaid that favor by filling Sebastian's mind with beautiful things.

With the scent of roses, specifically the ones that he remembered growing in his mother's garden.

With the taste of chocolate – cakes, truffles, cookies and sweets they had made and shared together.

With the sound of music they found in nature – the orioles that sang to them every morning, the breezes blowing through the branches of their willow tree, the ocean waves breaking on the shore on the day they were married,

But mostly, Kurt filled Sebastian's mind with lights.

Since Kurt discovered he could enter Sebastian's mind, it had become his happy place, his safe haven, but prior to the day Sebastian met Kurt, so many of Sebastian's memories were bleak. Kurt couldn't change those. He couldn't reverse the beatings, couldn't alleviate the agony of being abandoned, even though he wished he could. What was the good of having this phenomenal power if he couldn't reach back through time and change things for Sebastian? If he could, it would probably change their history. Without the suffering Sebastian had gone through, they might never have met, but every day Kurt thought he'd be willing to take that chance.

But in lieu of actually changing history, Kurt strung lights everywhere in Sebastian's mind – sunlight from a warm spring day; starlight from a cloudless night; golden candlelight from the tapers they lit at dinner; moonlight as it danced on the still, indigo ocean; multi-colored lights on trees and in windows at Christmas. Lightning where it split the sky. The light of their shared blue flame. Pure white lights. Lights of many colors. Natural light. Decorative lights. Lights he'd seen. Lights he could only imagine. Lights from creatures that lived underneath the sea. Lights from comets soaring through space.

"What are you doing, love?" Sebastian asked without opening his eyes, without pulling his consciousness away from the amazing fireworks display Kurt orchestrated in his mind.

"I'm lighting up the dark corners," Kurt whispered. "I'm showing you there's nothing to be afraid of."

"There is _one_ thing," Sebastian admitted in a rough voice. He thought, at first, that he shouldn't say it out loud, but Kurt would see it in his mind anyway. He had nothing to hide from Kurt, and it was a sin for him to lie. "I thought…I was going to lose you. I felt us being torn apart and I…I didn't know what I'd do without you. I didn't know what to do to save us."

Kurt leaned in and kissed Sebastian on the forehead, the way a parent would a frightened child, but in Sebastian's head and in his body, it meant much more. It was another root in the vine that joined them together, that every thought, every touch, every kiss, every memory, wove into their private arbor, shielding them from the world.

Much like their willow tree, back at the temple.

God. It seemed like they'd left it so long ago, but it hadn't even been a year.

"You know what to do if that happens again?" Kurt asked, whispering the words over Sebastian's skin, the lightning marks fading from blue to silver.

"What should I do, Scion?"

Kurt used to hate Sebastian calling him that, but after the ordeals that had brought them here - Kurt unlocking his power, their wedding, everything they were to each other, and defying the will of the universe just to be together - _Scion_ didn't mean the same to Kurt any more. That title no longer distanced them, priest and savior.

It brought them together on a level that didn't exist for other people.

It didn't exist for anyone else but the two of them, and therefore, it had become blessed.

"Trust in me," Kurt said, bringing Sebastian's hands to his lips to be kissed. "Believe in me. And with everything you have, believe that I'll find a way to keep us safe."

_Keep them safe_ – that had been the edict handed to Sebastian. But now, Kurt - his sweet, innocent, fair-minded husband – had taken the reigns, and gone from protected to protector.

Sebastian smirked as Kurt's lips delicately brushed his knuckles. "I do," Sebastian said. "I never doubted you for a second."


	17. Take What We Can Get

**A/N: ****Kurt discovers on accident that Sebastian has absorbed more of his power in a rather unusual way. He also learns that he can use that power to connect with his husband intimately.**

**(Note*** Since this story doesn't update as quickly as I would like, you guys might feel that this whole story is about two sexually repressed teenagers. Well, it is and it isn't. Kurt and Seb are sheltered. They're in a life and death situation that they don't particularly understand, and they're trying to resolve that while also trying to carve out a place of peace and happiness. But there are things that are beyond they're control. They've been lied to, manipulated, and this power that Kurt has that he's not too thrilled with, that he thinks is trying to control him, is actually trying to help him, and you'll find out how later on. I promise to be more diligent so you guys can find out 3)**

Kurt discovered, very innocently, that Sebastian's lightning scars, which covered most of his body, were more than a latent side effect of their souls being fused together and expelled into the universe. The marks turned out to be reservoirs, where Kurt's fire had imbued Sebastian's body with power, surging below the surface of his skin. Sebastian no longer needed the heart totem to call up the flame, though the fire seemed weaker without it, probably because the heart was Kurt's power manifest, and these reservoirs flowed with a combined essence that was equal parts Kurt and Sebastian.

Sebastian didn't feel as secure with the power now that it lived within him as he did when he first learned to wield it. Instead of acting like an extension of him, the way a knife or a bo staff would, it felt more like a parasite. It burrowed beneath his skin, and fed off his thoughts and emotions, particular his ones of Kurt. Now Sebastian understood what Kurt meant when he said he felt like it was trying to control him. It brought Sebastian's fantasies out of the dark and kept them ever in the forefront of his mind, which made maintaining a chaste relationship with his husband a daunting task. Still, he knew that it tortured him to a lesser degree than it did Kurt. The power, as always, was happy to use Sebastian, but it didn't seem all that interested in him. Or impressed by him. But that was fine.

And Sebastian was okay with going back to square one to learn this skill anew.

Kurt loved having that to bond over again.

But this revelation over the nature of Sebastian's scars came when Kurt realized that the fire within him could call Sebastian's fire out through the branching marks on his skin. Sebastian's scars had started out a bright, iridescent blue, but they had turned to a cool, liquid silver over time, unlike the scars of other lightning strike survivors, which (they had found out through a Google search) were usually an angry reddish-purple. But that's because Sebastian's weren't just _any_ lightning marks. They were created by Kurt's power, partially as he defied the will of the universe. They had been doing research by way of Sebastian's throw away cell phone to see exactly how long they could expect those scars to stay. The survivors they read about had had their marks for decades with no fading whatsoever. Sebastian would most likely have his for the rest of his life.

Kurt normally slept on his side, with Sebastian holding him from behind, but after their battle against the demons, he started sleeping with his cheek resting against his husband's chest, where he could listen to Sebastian's heartbeat, even while unconscious.

Kurt might be some sort of "supreme being", but Sebastian was Kurt's anchor, and his heartbeat had become Kurt's amulet to ward off the demons that lurked inside his brain, waiting to turn his dreams into nightmares, haunt him with the dozens of grotesque ways they would destroy the one thing he loved more than his own life.

Sebastian's heartbeat reminded Kurt that regardless of what he saw in those dreams, the demons hadn't won.

But they sure knew how to play Kurt, and it was during one of those nightmares that he turned his face into Sebastian's chest, hiding his eyes into his husband's bare skin, and whimpered. Sebastian's skin against Kurt's was comforting and warm, but a bit too warm. It would have been unbearably warm if Kurt wasn't a master of the flame. He opened his eyes when he felt the heat on his face, and the way it lit his eyes with its power. He yawned, blowing out a long sigh, and saw that everywhere his breath touched, Sebastian's scars began to glow.

And Sebastian started to moan.

Kurt did it again, on purpose this time, and the same thing happened. His gaze swept down Sebastian's body as he breathed, and he saw blue light zipping along the scars, shoulders to chest to hips, underneath his pants, illuminating each leg beneath the cotton fabric. And down the front, his cock twitched.

"Oh…my…" Kurt murmured.

Apparently, whatever Kurt's power did to ignite Sebastian's flame, it felt good to him.

Kurt blew another breath, right above one twisted scar, to see if he could make Sebastian's cock do that again. Sebastian moaned louder, and as Kurt watched, his cock grew harder, grew longer, bobbing against the elastic waistband of his pants. Along with Sebastian's addicting moan, he sleepily murmured Kurt's name.

"Kurt…_mmm_…Kurt…yes…don't…stop…"

Kurt pushed up on his hands and blew again, moving slowly down Sebastian's body, trying out this newfound power on varying areas of Sebastian's body to see if he could get him to moan more, say his name again, maybe with more urgency. He brought his mouth over Sebastian's arm and pursed his lips, blowing cool air on his skin to see if that made a difference. It did. Along with the glowing scars, if seemed to make Sebastian restless, his fingers flexing, opening and closing, looking for something. Kurt blew in Sebastian's palm, and his fingers closed around it quickly, his fist balling tight, trying to hold on.

Kurt brought his mouth back to Sebastian's chest and warmed his skin, which made Sebastian relax into the pillows and arch his spine. Kurt's eyes darted to the ever growing area that mystified him so, and its response to everything he did.

And Sebastian's reaction - his hand crawling up his leg to reach for it, but something held him back. How Kurt wanted to see, watch his husband touch himself. He'd had similar fantasies briefly before, when the only possibility of it existed inside his mind. But here Sebastian was, in front of him, visibly yearning for touch and moaning Kurt's name in search of it.

Was there some way that Kurt could push him over that edge?

Kurt brought his mouth to Sebastian's nipple and blew hot air over it, then cold, and that almost did. But the man's discipline, even in sleep, proved infuriatingly strong. Kurt felt guilty for tormenting him, especially when Sebastian deserved to be left in peace, but Kurt wanted more. He shouldn't. He was pushing boundaries. He couldn't step too far over. How much could he touch and still consider himself unsullied? He often kissed his husband on the forehead, on the hand, on the cheek, and that seemed to be okay. Where exactly was the line drawn?

Could Kurt kiss him _here_? If he himself didn't become sexually aroused by kissing his husband, could he get away with pleasuring him?

Was he brave enough…selfish enough…to find out?

Kurt knew the rules. It wasn't the act that was necessarily a sin, but the intent. Maybe Kurt wouldn't get turned on by being intimate with his husband in these mild ways (unlikely, of course, but it could be possible), but if his intention was to turn Sebastian on, it still might count. It seemed like a grey-ish area.

In retrospect, Kurt realized, the priests of the order dabbled in grey areas all the time. Why couldn't he?

Kurt decided to try a touch – a simple, uncomplicated touch. He licked his finger. Gently, he circled Sebastian's nipple with his fingertip, and suddenly, everything from Sebastian's cock to his shoulders jerked.

"Kurt…" he moaned. "Yes, Kurt…_mmm_…"

Kurt took a breath in, then let it out, trying to kill the stirrings of his own erection. He continued blowing on Sebastian's nipple, alternating between hot and cold over the sensitive skin.

The keen of pleasure it elicited from Sebastian was positively glorious.

Stimulating Sebastian like this filled Kurt with a rush that nothing could compare to – not even his blue flame.

Kurt found himself massaging Sebastian's body as he blew, hands kneading muscles, fingers tracing the gnarled tributaries of Sebastian's scars, while he became drunk off of every noise that came from Sebastian's mouth. He ignored all else, and didn't realize that Sebastian was calling out his name in earnest.

Kurt felt Sebastian's hand on his shoulder, pushing him away. Kurt's eyes, glowing white, looked at his priest's face, everything about him trembling in distress.

"Kurt," Sebastian pleaded in a shaking voice. "Don't…don't do this."

"Please?" Kurt took hold of Sebastian's wrists and pinned his arms down. "Let me?"

"I…I can't…" Sebastian shook his head. "I don't have the strength to stop you, Kurt. I…"

"Then don't," Kurt said, smiling in a way he hoped was reassuring.

Sebastian stared at Kurt, at war with himself, his wants and his needs over everything he'd been taught, his feelings for Kurt coupled with the confusion of not being allowed to refuse him.

The priests taught their acolytes to do everything the Scion commanded; to obey him without reservation.

Did that mean that Kurt found a loophole?

Was Sebastian allowed to disobey? Did the overall importance of the mission require him to?

Sebastian was still battling this in his foggy brain when Kurt returned his attention to Sebastian's stomach.

"Kurt…" Sebastian begged at the first touch of moist heat to his skin.

"Shhh," Kurt hushed. "Trust me." He kissed the tips of his fingers and ran them over Sebastian's lips as he continued to blow, thin streams of air from his mouth growing hot with blue licks of flame. Sebastian surrendered and opened his mouth to accept them, moaning when each finger left his mouth to be replaced by a new one. Blue light seeped through the cracks and burns on Sebastian's skin, making Sebastian glow brighter from within than he ever had before.

Nobody at the temple ever explained sex to Kurt. They only taught the priests when they became of age and could partake in the ceremony. Until recently, Kurt wasn't even entirely sure how it was done, not between two boys especially. Even Sebastian's beautiful daydream paled in comparison to this. Here, Kurt heard Sebastian moan with his own ears instead of inside his head; he felt Sebastian struggle beneath his hands, caught between wanting to push Kurt away for his own safety and wrapping his arms around him, maybe pulling his mouth closer. Kurt saw Sebastian's head thrash on the pillow, his legs bending at the knees and falling open, his body disobeying while his mind tried to settle him down and convince him to do the right thing, to abstain.

But what could be more right than this? Being with the man he loved?

No longer did Sebastian beg Kurt to stop. He begged him for more.

"Kurt," he murmured, louder the lower Kurt moved down his body, his mouth centimeters from Sebastian's skin. "Oh Kurt, oh Go-" Sebastian bit his lips together so as not to take the Lord's name in vain. "Kurt, I'm…I'm…"

Kurt loomed over him, holding Sebastian's arms to the mattress tighter.

"Kurt, I'm…don't…don't stop…Kurt…"

Kurt blew over the bulge in Sebastian's pants, an actual blue plume of fire lighting his skin through the fabric. Sebastian clenched his teeth and hissed, and for a moment, Kurt was afraid he'd hurt him. But then he bucked his hips and cried, "Kurt!"

Kurt had yet to see his husband in this state, yet to be this close to this part of his body. They rarely changed in front of one another. They didn't shower together. They didn't spend time naked around one another if they could help it. Being married, becoming connected the way they had, inhabiting one soul, one consciousness, even for the short amount of time it had lasted, somehow strengthened their bond. It had heightened their sense of one another. They didn't want to tempt fate.

Kurt wasn't tempting it now. He was disregarding it altogether.

Kurt paused, and Sebastian mewled like he was in agony.

Kurt longed to put him out of it.

Kurt sucked in a breath, and blew a concentrated stream of heat over his throbbing cock.

"Kurt!" Sebastian groaned, back arching in an attempt to push Kurt off before it was too late, but subconsciously in an effort to get closer. "Go-_mmm_!"

Kurt blew one more time, waiting for Sebastian to arch his back again and lift his hips off the mattress. When he did, Kurt used his power to pull his husband's pants halfway down his thighs, freeing his entire length for Kurt to see. Kurt had only ever seen himself hard, and he didn't have a very high opinion of his own body. Not that he needed to. Those things were not supposed to be important to him. Vanity and pride were both sins, and besides, Sebastian had a lofty enough opinion of Kurt's body for both of them. But Sebastian – _God_. Kurt had always thought Sebastian was the most handsome boy he'd ever seen, but like this, naked beneath him, erect and quivering with desire, at the mercy of Kurt's mouth, he was absolutely breathtaking.

One more blow had Sebastian choking on a gulp of air, writhing to be free, cumming beyond his ability to control it. Kurt watched in fascination as Sebastian came over his abs and his chest, long white ropes tinged in blue painting his skin up to his chin, all because of Kurt. Kurt ran two fingers through Sebastian's cum, felt it between his thumb and fingertips. Then he brought his fingers to his lips.

"No!" a shuddering Sebastian gasped, snatching Kurt's wrist before he could put his fingers in his mouth. "No! Don't!" Sebastian grabbed the pillow behind him, shook it free from its case, and wiped off Kurt's soiled fingers. "Why would you try to do that? What were you thinking?"

"I…I want you," Kurt said, still mesmerized by what just happened. "I want _more_ of you."

"You have _all_ of me," Sebastian said, quickly cleaning himself off with the pillowcase and tossing it over the side. "But we have to be careful. I'm unclean, remember? Unworthy?" Kurt gawked at how casually Sebastian could say that, how completely and nonchalantly he could tear himself down while he shimmied his pants back up, throwing the covers over his lower half to be extra sure Kurt was protected from him.

"You are _not_ unworthy," Kurt countered, angry that Sebastian would say such a thing, but angrier that he would believe it.

"Kurt, I think that maybe your power is influencing you again," Sebastian said, not acknowledging Kurt's denial. "It's making you reckless."

"It's not my _power_," Kurt snapped. "I'm not a _puppet_, Sebastian! I'm human! And I want to be with my husband!"

"I know you do, Kurt," Sebastian said, opening his arms for Kurt, hugging him hard when he crawled into his embrace. "And I know you are. But you're more than human, and for now, that _more_ that you are needs to be preserved."

Kurt nodded, immediately feeling ashamed.

"I know," Kurt sighed. "You're right, and I'm sorry."

"Kurt, there's no reason for you to be…"

"And I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," he said, cutting Sebastian off from absolving him. "I'm sorry if I…took advantage of you. I…I shouldn't have done that. Any of it. Not without your permission."

"Don't, Kurt. I…" Sebastian kissed the top of his head, abolishing another absolution that he knew Kurt wouldn't accept. He pressed his lips to Kurt's scalp, Kurt's heat bleeding into him. "You're my husband, Kurt."

"That doesn't give me the right," Kurt said. "But I thought that maybe, that way, I could make you feel good."

"You did," Sebastian sighed, his body still tingling from it. Kurt's breath ghosting over his flesh brought those sensations back with every word. "I'm not worried about me. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Kurt nestled against Sebastian's chest and shook his head. "This power, this journey, it's taken so much away from us. I wanted to use it to give something back."

"Well" – Sebastian ran a hand over Kurt's arm, covering him in comforting touches – "the next time we do that, we'll talk first. We should set up limits, devise some sort of barriers, find ways to cage your power better. We'll buy condoms. We'll be safer."

"You'd let me do that again?" Kurt tilted his head to look at Sebastian, his husband gazing at him with nothing less than admiration on his flushed face.

"Yes, Kurt," Sebastian said, cradling Kurt's head over his heart, "because you're right. There's so much we don't get to have. But we can have this. We should take what we can get."


End file.
